


From Instep to Heel

by orangeflavor



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Arranged Marriage, Dark Jon Snow, Drama & Romance, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Identity Issues, Jealousy, Mild Blood, Mildly Dubious Consent, Miscarriage, Politics, Possessive Jon Snow, Rhaegar Lives AU, Sexual Tension, a bit of enemies to lovers, dark in some places, it's only dub-con in the beginning and then they fuck in earnest, mentions of past rape
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-16
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:40:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 174,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22277254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orangeflavor/pseuds/orangeflavor
Summary: “‘I’m a Targaryen,’ he says finally, the words smarting along his tongue, even now.  A need and an uncertainty all at once.  ‘And she – ’  He stops, swallows.  ‘She is nothing,’ he finishes tightly, the untruth a tremulous exhale as it leaves him.”  -  Jon and Sansa.  Like the curve of the horizon, when the moon breaks from beneath its bow.
Relationships: Aegon/Daenerys, Jon Snow/Sansa Stark, past Jon/Rhaenys (not explicit)
Comments: 2103
Kudos: 2072





	1. Dragon Pit

**Author's Note:**

> Despite my better judgement, here I am starting another longfic. Because I'm a whore for Jonsa. So strap in, kiddies. 
> 
> A few points (because I ain't delving into all the politics of the past with this one and boring ya'll with exposition you ain't got time for):
> 
> \- Rhaegar won and legitimized Jon even though Lyanna still died (and I'm keeping him Jon because Lyanna named him that and Rhaegar held to it and you're all gonna go along with it, mmkay?).  
> \- The Sack of King's Landing only partially succeeded, because Robert Baratheon managed to kill Mad King Aerys, but was subsequently killed by Jaime Lannister.  
> \- Rhaegar wasn't crazy about the Lannisters' slow response to aid but grudgingly kept them in the fold, marrying Cersei off to Viserys at Dragonstone as half appeasement and half sly insult.  
> \- Stannis wouldn't bend the knee after Robert died and he's been fighting a rebellion ever since, though dwindling in the later years, and Renly got the Stormlands because he bent the knee to Rhaegar and got to keep his head.  
> \- Jon Arryn died in the war as well, and when Ned Stark realized the rebellion was lost, he knelt to save his people. Rhaegar pardoned him, knowing that his father killed Rickard and Brandon Stark and he didn't want to foster further unrest by retaliating against the North any further. Tensions are still strained.  
> \- There was an Ironborn rebellion at some point, similar to canon.  
> \- Some familiar characters/houses will not appear or be talked about much if they're not important to the current political climate.  
> \- There is some one-sided Sansa/Theon and background Robb/Margaery that I didn't tag because I didn't want to inundate you guys with minor pairings that played little to no role in the main story.  
> \- Everyone is aged up. This house does not condone that child bride shit.
> 
> Annnnnd break!

Disclaimer: I own nothing, I make no money.

From Instep to Heel

Chapter One: Dragon Pit

"' _I'm a Targaryen,' he says finally, the words smarting along his tongue, even now. A need and an uncertainty all at once. 'And she – ' He stops, swallows. 'She is nothing,' he finishes tightly, the untruth a tremulous exhale as it leaves him."_ \- Jon and Sansa. Like the curve of the horizon, when the moon breaks from beneath its bow.

* * *

Sansa Stark is brought to the capital by her father and brothers, a train of Stark banners flying behind them, and it's the first glimpse of the North Jon has ever truly seen. The white banners flutter in the breeze, tattered slightly at the ends, as though they are accustomed to stronger gales than the summer winds they get down South. A brilliant grey direwolf emblazons each of them, and Jon's eyes follow the print as the entourage makes its way steadily toward the steps of the Red Keep.

"I expected a carriage or some other such extravagance to be carrying your betrothed," Rhaenys whispers at his ear.

Jon adopts a smirk at the comment, without turning to her. His eyes follow the horses at the head of the procession. No, the Northmen have always been practical. He imagines the waving of their House banners are all the pride and spectacle the Starks can stomach to display here anyway, and they are smart not to step beyond that when traveling to King's Landing to present their eldest daughter to the king's son.

Jon grinds his teeth at the reminder. He'd not had a say in the matter, though he doubts he would have even if the lady were not of Northern descent. A prince's choice of lady is never his own. He remembers the way Aegon had stoically accepted Daenerys' hand when Rhaegar set the match forward, hoping for a resilient line of true Targaryens to reign after him, though now the lack of any child between them yet has Rhaegar anxious and looking North.

"A beautiful, _fertile_ lady of good standing and impressive lineage," his father had enthused when first presenting the command to Jon. "A way to ensure a strong, continuing line." His violet eyes had glazed over in remembrance, a look that made bile rise in Jon's throat. Had Rhaegar seen his mother in this way? As a means to an end?

No, there was affection there as well, Jon knows. It's in the way Rhaegar had brushed the dark hair tenderly from his forehead as a child, and in the way he'd clapped enthusiastically, though obviously inappropriately, the first time Jon beat Aegon in a spar, and in the way he's now dressed Jon in the finest Targaryen silks of red and black this day, standing him only a step below his elder brother Aegon.

'The favored child' some of the court call him, but Jon knows better. No bastard, even a legitimized one, will ever be favored over the heir. He has his father's affections, it's true, but how much of that is simply a lingering attachment to the Northern bride he couldn't keep? Jon wonders this as he catches his father's gaze over the procession as it halts at the end of the steps. The gleam in his eye as he takes in Lady Sansa atop her horse does not tell of fatherly admiration. Jon swallows back the disgust.

It's as he'd suspected – just a whimsical, reckless recreation of the past. Rhaegar likens Jon and Sansa to he and Lyanna come again.

Jon resents the lady before him now even more for it.

"Be nice, you two," Aegon mutters just a step above Jon, glancing down to his siblings out of the corner of his eye. "Do not shame our father." Daenerys' arm rests linked through Aegon's as she turns a similar admonishing eye their way.

Jon lifts his chin, bristling in his silk tunic. "You know I've no intention to disgrace our house," he says lowly.

Aegon inclines his head just a touch, acknowledging the comment, but Jon is secretly grateful for the reminder, for Rhaenys' sake, flighty and impish and headstrong as she is. It's why he frowns at the way she tucks her hand beneath his elbow, standing too close for propriety. "Rhaenys," he warns, stepping almost imperceptibly away from her.

She huffs at his side, sliding her touch from his arm and clasping her hands behind her back as she rocks on her heels. "Fine." She throws an exasperated look Aegon's way, softening only slightly when he chuckles at her and shakes his head in resignation. She beams up at their brother then, dark eyes crinkling, and Jon resists the urge to catch a tendril of her black hair between his fingers.

Ned Stark dismounts his horse with a stilted grace born of battle-honed muscles. Beside him, a young man with auburn hair does the same, though his movements are smooth and practiced, eyes glinting a sharp Tully blue as he takes in the court at the top of the stairs. Another dark copper-haired man, though still hanging onto the edges of boyhood, if his slightly fuller cheeks and gangly limbs are anything to go by, dismounts similarly beside him. Sansa's horse is obscured slightly just behind them, and Jon is not eager enough in his interest to bother craning his neck for a better look. A flash of red catches his eye, her half-braided hair slipping over a shoulder, silver sleeves over delicate hands, still caught in the reins, bespeaking a strength and command at odds with the fragility of her thin wrists and fine-boned fingers when she sets the reins aside to reach for the young auburn-haired man with his arms out to help her off the saddle. She slides down into him easily, hands at his shoulders, his at her waist, a duck of her head in thanks, and then he's taking her hand and escorting her around the horses, a man of the house pulling the steeds aside by their bridles.

Jon sees her face for the first time. There's sweat glinting off her forehead, a few, faint tendrils of red clinging to the skin. Her eyes are on the steps beneath her as the Starks begin their climb but every so often they flicker up, never landing on him, and even from here he can see the frost blue of her eyes, similar to her brother's own Tully coloring beside her, and yet, strikingly different. Almost grey in the light. The color of dusk – when the sky matches the sea across the port, light a meager, retreating thing beneath the coming cover of darkness. Her frame is lithe and tall, hips flaring only subtly beneath the heavy Northern wool of her dress, a delicate hand holding her skirts up as she continues the climb, a smoothness and elegance to her step, her other hand held fast in her brother's.

Jon almost laughs. No, this is not the brash, brave Northern wind of a girl his father had thought to bring back to life. And when she finally makes her way to the top, hands smoothing over her skirts, he catches the way her pink mouth trembles on the cusp of a frown, stretching instead into a practiced smile, all poise and graciousness, shoulders pulled taut and back straight.

She is devastatingly lovely, of course. No man could say otherwise. And he rather thinks her brothers know it, too, given the near antagonistic looks he catches them throwing his way.

Ned Stark gives a reserved bow, hand at his chest. "Your Grace," he greets in his deep Northern brogue.

The sound is strange to Jon but enticing in a way he can't quite identify. Had his mother spoken like that?

Rhaegar climbs down the steps to Lord Stark, hands going to clap him on the arms, making sure to stand two steps above him, the height granting him leave to look down upon the Northern Lord. Jon does not miss the intention.

Neither does Ned, it seems, as he bends his head even lower, hand still at his chest, a somber expression lighting his features.

"Lord Stark," Rhaegar greets, "Welcome to King's Landing." His hands fall from the other man's broad shoulders.

Ned nods his acknowledgement of the welcome, turning to the man beside Sansa. "If I may, Your Grace, this is my eldest, Robb, the heir to Winterfell."

Robb inclines his head in much the same manner that his father did, but his eyes stay focused on the king rather than the ground. Jon finds himself smirking at the gesture, even when Rhaenys bristles beside him.

"Your Grace," the young wolf greets, stepping back when Lord Stark motions to the young man at Sansa's other side.

"My son, Bran."

Bran blinks in barely concealed awe at the line of Targaryens before him, and it's only Sansa's subtle pinch at his arm, partly obscured by her flowing sleeves, that has him bowing himself, a hasty "Your Grace" leaving his lips.

Ned takes a deep breath, eyes softening when they land on Sansa, and he ushers her toward him, taking her elbow in hand, a hardened smile mixed of pride and sorrow (the kind that will always accompany fathers with daughters) gracing his weathered features. "And this is my eldest daughter, Sansa."

Sansa gives a curtsey bespeaking the height of her station, but not so high as to offend the king. It's rather telling, actually, her calculated mannerisms. Jon eyes her closely, curious what sort of woman can be so prettily shrewd and practiced.

Rhaegar smiles sickly sweet at her and reaches for her hand. She offers it dutifully. Jon's father plants a kiss along her knuckles, a thumb sweeping over the warmed skin when his lips retreat, and Sansa retracts her hand almost too quickly to be polite, but not quite. Rhaegar smiles all the same, straightening as he watches her. "Stunning," he breathes out, and Jon can see Lord Stark stiffen beside his daughter, hand still held tight to her elbow.

In truth, his father's response has Jon's own gut curling tight, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. He feels Rhaenys brush a hand over his shoulder blades, barely there, but comforting all the same. He eases a bit at the motion, before she drops her hand back to her side.

"She hasn't the look of Lyanna though does she, Ned?" Rhaegar asks, only a sliver of disappointment slipping through his question, still entranced by Sansa's presence in a disquieting way.

Ned shakes his head, glancing to her. "No, she takes after my wife in that respect. She's all her mother, it seems."

"Not all, Father," Sansa says teasingly, looking up at him with a tender smile.

He smiles down at her, softening, and there, in the crinkle of his eyes, Jon sees the resemblance. In the sweep of their noses and the arch of their brows and the strength of their jaws – a cold cut North lingering beneath the warm, affectionate look.

"She's a beauty, all the same. Wouldn't you say, Aegon?" Rhaegar asks his son, motioning for him to come down the steps toward them.

Daenerys' hand easily unwinds from Aegon's arm to clasp her other hand before her, Aegon slipping from her at their father's heed, coming to step beside him. "That she is, Father," he agrees softly, a disarming smile gracing his fine features, and when he takes Sansa's offered hand, he merely holds it, leaning only far enough down to grant her a small bow of his head, rather than a brush of his lips to her knuckles, and her lips part at the gesture. Aegon releases her hand and Jon watches as she tries and fails to smother her answering smile.

Jon resists the urge to roll his eyes. His brother's always been rather keen on how to make a lady smile (on how to make a lady do all manner of things she shouldn't for a married man), and Jon cannot help the flare of resentment that ignites in his gut at the knowledge that Aegon is using such tricks on _his_ betrothed.

On _his_ lady.

"My son and heir, Aegon Targaryen," Rhaegar introduces proudly, a hand at his shoulder.

The Starks all bow appropriately. "Prince Aegon," they greet, but Sansa's greeting is a touch softer, sweeter, and Jon nearly seethes at the sound.

"And his wife, Princess Daenerys." Rhaegar waves a hand up the steps in his own sister's direction.

Daenerys offers a tight smile and a nod in greeting, perfectly styled hair blowing softly in the wind, a striking white against the red silk adorning her. She makes a fairly intimidating image, Jon must admit, but then, his aunt has always been a quietly coiled dragon. He does not envy his brother his marriage.

"You were right, Father," Aegon says now, sunlight glinting off his violet eyes in a becoming way as he stares down at Sansa unabashed. "She will make my brother a very, _very_ happy man."

Sansa ducks her head in embarrassment, her cheeks tinging pink, and Jon steps forward without realizing he has moved, throat tight, tongue burning with his sudden covetousness. He stills suddenly, just a step down, chest constricting at the realization.

All eyes turn to him in unison.

It is infinitely uncultured to introduce oneself before the king has called you forward, and Jon sucks his tongue between his teeth at his impulsiveness, cursing himself. Sansa looks at him for the first time, mouth parted, one fine eyebrow arched in clear reproach of his poor manners. It makes the anger boil hotter in his gut.

Rhaegar eyes him with a quiet rebuke, violet eyes flashing dark for a brief moment, before he dons another blinding smile, ushering him closer. "Ah, and my son, Jon Targaryen. Eager to meet his new bride, I imagine." His father's hand at his arm is firm and leashing.

Jon swallows tightly, ignoring the knowing smirk Aegon wears beside him. He will not embarrass his house further. He nods to Ned, "Lord Stark," and then to his sons. When he glances to Sansa, she's eyeing him curiously. No doubt she notices how much more like _her_ father he looks than his own. Her brow furrows at his dark eyes, his dark curls, eyes roving his face, mouth opening as though to speak, and then promptly shutting. She offers her hand silently, still staring at him with a hint of intrigue.

 _I've not the North in me_ , he wants to tell her. _Stop looking for it._

"Lady Stark," he greets, taking her hand in his own calloused one. It's as soft and unmarred as he had suspected, though the light roughness at the tips of her index and middle finger tell of years of needlework. Not exactly the hands of a great rider, as Lyanna Stark had reportedly been. Father will be disappointed, he thinks ruefully.

"Lady Stark is my mother, my lord," she corrects politely.

Jon stares at her, hand gripping hers as he lowers his mouth to her knuckles. "Then," he begins, stopping just before brushing a kiss to her cool skin, tongue wetting his lips unconsciously, "Lady Sansa," he breathes, and the warmth of his breath on her knuckles has her tugging away almost reflexively before she stops herself, drawing a deep breath in as he continues to watch her through his dark lashes.

He holds her like that a moment, something roiling inside him at the clear discomfort she expresses, imagining she sees his father in him when he touches her so, and the thought has him curling his lip, before dropping her hand without ever touching his mouth to her skin, a smothered sigh breaking from his lips.

She tucks her hand back behind the fabric of her sleeves, eyes leaving his instantly. Ned watches the exchange with a somber expression.

"Yes, well, 'Lady Sansa Targaryen' soon," Rhaegar promises beside him.

Jon flexes his hand at his side.

"And of course," Rhaegar continues, smile now indulgent and infinitely fond, "My daughter, Rhaenys."

Jon is silently thankful that Rhaenys keeps a proper distance from him when she steps forward, offering a curtsey of her own, red and black silk fluttering over her lean frame, before she tucks a strand of dark hair behind her ear, eyes glinting playfully in the light, her olive skin a stark contrast with his own paleness. Dornish looks with a Targaryen bearing, cheeks sharp, lips full. He's not surprised when the youngest Stark, Bran, looks upon her with awe.

Jon had looked upon her similarly before.

But that was _before_.

And he does not intend to carry on with his half-sister, as acceptably _Targaryen_ as it is, when he's soon to wed a daughter of the North. The insult would be too great. And Jon will not incur more enemies to his house. Their family's grip on the kingdoms is loosening even now, slowly and steadily. He will _not_ be the reason the North breaks with the crown.

"You must all be tired from your long journey. Please, I've had your rooms prepared for you. You may settle and refresh yourselves before the feast tonight," Rhaegar says, an arm sweeping out to welcome them into the keep.

Lord Stark tucks his daughter's hand into his elbow and follows up after the king with her at his side, Jon and Rhaenys stepping aside to allow them room. The Stark boys follow after, Robb glancing at Jon with a look of apprehension, and somewhat of warning. Jon finds enough courtesy in him not to grimace at the other man.

Aegon sidles up to him as they watch the retreating forms of the Starks. "Well?"

Jon rolls his eyes, even as he smirks at his brother, tugging at the collar of his shirt. He's anxious to be rid of this pompous silk and back in his usual leathers. He misses the way Sansa glances back at the three of them, just the once.

Rhaenys leans an arm atop Jon's shoulder, even with his height on her. "I think she's a bit haughty, if you ask me." His sister doesn't bother to hide her dislike, and Jon hadn't expected her to.

"I rather like her," Aegon says, glancing at Jon out of the corner of his eye.

Jon swings an annoyed look his way. "Don't like her too well, brother. It's not _your_ wife she'll be by next moon."

"No," Aegon muses, a taunting smirk pulling at his lips, "Sadly."

"Aegon," Jon warns, no longer amused.

But his brother only claps him on the shoulder before turning and rising up the stairs with arms opened toward Daenerys. "Wife," he calls.

Daenerys crosses her arms over her chest and throws him an aggravated look. Jon nearly laughs.

They make their way into the Keep, out of the blaring Southern sun. Jon's eyes stop looking for a flash of red far later than he'd like to admit.

* * *

"I don't like him," Theon mutters as he sits in the open-aired sitting room in the wing the Starks and their people are granted in the Red Keep. He'd kept his place with the other members of the house down at the bottom of the steps when Lord Stark had presented his children to the King. Still, a brittle anger churned within him when he remembered the way the princes had looked upon Sansa. Theon grumbles as he looks out one of the wide pane-less windows to the gardens below, and then on past the stretch of King's Landing, all the way to the docks, ships like flecks of dirt on the pristine water.

"You don't like any Targaryen," Bran teases as he swipes a biscuit from the side table before flopping into a red-cushioned chair.

Theon throws him a look caught somewhere between vexed and validated. "Exactly. But for Sansa to marry one?" He scoffs, lounging back along the chaise.

"And who _should_ she marry, then?" Robb mocks from his seat across from Bran. "You?"

Theon cocks a wolfish grin Robb's way. "Well, now that you mention it, Stark…"

"Oh gods, don't even say it," Bran groans, biscuit rolling about his mouth.

Robb kicks out at Theon's knee playfully, but there's a warning look in his eye. "She's my sister, Greyjoy, not another one of your conquests."

Theon pulls a face, seemingly genuinely offended by the remark as he avoids Robb's kick easily. "That's _not_ how I look at Sansa, and you know that."

"I don't want you looking at Sansa _at all_."

"So, you'd rather the Targaryen bastard?"

Robb quiets at the reminder, jaw clenching. "It's the King's command."

"Aye, the King's command," Theon says scornfully. He leans forward suddenly, elbows over his knees as he pins Robb with a somber look. "And if it weren't? Would you still see her tied to that bastard?" he asks lowly, eyes imploring him.

Robb stays deadly quiet, his hands curling over his armrests.

Bran swallows another bite of biscuit. "Is he still a bastard if he's been legitimized?"

Theon rolls his eyes at the younger Stark. "A bastard's still a bastard."

"But if Prince Aegon died, Prince Jon would be the heir, right?"

Theon grumbles but nods, acknowledging the truth of it. Before Robb can open his mouth to chime in, Sansa is sweeping into the room.

"Hush, Bran," she bites out, stalking toward them as the door swings shut behind her. Robb and Theon straighten in their seats at her sudden presence, but Bran only lolls a bit of biscuit over his tongue, watching her stalk toward the open windows. Sansa glances out past the rail, eyes keen and watchful for anybody listening, the breeze lightly fluttering her hair, before she's turning back to her younger brother and pinching the back of his neck.

"Ow!" Bran cries, crumbs flying from his mouth as he whips back to glare up at her.

"That's treasonous talk, and I'll not have it," she hisses, softening at his boyish pout. "The capital is dangerous, Bran, you have to remember that. You're nearly a man grown now. You'd better start acting like it."

Bran opens his mouth to protest when Sansa cuts him off. "And you two," she says, a finger raised at Theon and Robb, starting toward them.

Theon jumps from his seat, hands raised in surrender, unable to contain his laugh, while Robb tries to calm her, standing as well and grabbing at her arms to keep her from Theon. "Alright, alright." It's not a tight hold, and Sansa doesn't bother fighting it anyway, just huffing at the two of them while she plants her hands on her hips.

Robb chuckles at her, hands still at her upper arms, dropping his head to her shoulder as he lets out a warm laugh.

"Robb, this isn't funny," she admonishes.

Robb looks up at her, his smile tapering off before he clears his throat and nods at her, hands slipping from her arms. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Sansa, okay? I know this can't be easy for you."

She looks away, one hand going to the other to rub a worrying thumb into her opposite palm.

Robb glances at the motion, a frown tugging at his lips. He grabs for her hands to still them. "Walk with me," he tells her, tugging her toward the door.

Sansa sighs but lets him take her, her unease bleeding out a bit at her brother's concerned touch.

Robb turns back at the door, eyeing Theon warily. "Behave while we're away," he tells him, glancing over to Bran in shared meaning.

Bran smiles around his biscuit. Theon tuts. "No promises," the Greyjoy answers, grinning roguishly.

When Sansa glances back at him with an exasperated smile, Theon gives her a parting nod, grin softening slightly at the edges. "Sansa."

She scoffs, but it's tinged with a playful frustration that's familiar between the two. Her smile lingers a bit after the door closes behind them and Robb wraps her hand around his arm as they begin to walk.

"Do you think it was wise to bring Bran along?" Sansa asks carefully.

Robb rubs at his chin with his free hand. "He wants to be a knight. Father's right; what better place for him to learn?"

Sansa nods, remembering how reluctantly their mother had parted with Bran, with Rickon and Arya waving their goodbyes at Winterfell's gates. Still, his curiosity and exploring has gotten him in trouble before, and Winterfell hadn't held half the sort of deadly secrets King's Landing was purported to have. "He's too inquisitive," she muses, glancing about the open courtyard they pass in their walk through the corridors, golden light filtering through in a way that catches Sansa's breath. She's dreamt of the South before. Still does, somewhat.

The remembrance is sour on her tongue, suddenly.

She hadn't dreamt of it with a Targaryen prince in the picture.

"King Rhaegar is not his father, Sansa _,"_ her father had told her once, hands rising to cup her cheeks. "He's not the one who burned your grandfather and murdered your uncle, it's true." And here, his throat had tightened, his words coming hoarse, his thumbs brushing over her cheeks. "But you'll have to be _careful_ , my daughter. Tis still a dragon pit in the capital, and we are wolves."

Her hands had come up to cradle his over her cheeks. "I understand, Father."

 _We are wolves_.

She won't soon forget it.

Robb's pat on her arm brings her back to him. "Don't worry. He'll have you to look after him," he assures her, smiling teasingly.

Sansa rolls her eyes, but her own smile tugs at her lips.

"He listens to you."

"Oh, hardly."

"Well, he listens to you at least a little bit more than he listens to the rest of us."

Sansa eyes him warily. "And where are you to be in all this?"

Groaning, Robb turns them down another corridor, this one open to the air, following the east side of the Keep, where the sun is still high in the sky. "Mother thinks this is a good opportunity for me to learn the Southern court, if we're to play to it," he grumbles

Sansa blinks out across the sunlit city descending below them. "It's smart. You're to be Warden of the North one day. You should know how to treat with the Southern lords, how to play their game to keep our home safe."

"That's why you're here," he says, an attempt at nonchalance, even as his voice strains.

Sansa gives him a reproachful look, lips tipped into a frown. "This marriage cannot heal every rift between the North and the crown."

Robb swallows tightly, looking ahead as they walk. "I know."

Sansa stops them, her other hand coming up to grip at his arm now. "Robb."

He rakes a hand through his hair, a frustrated huff passing his lips. "I _know_ , Sansa."

Her brows dip into a furrow, her frown harshening as she tips his chin up to look at him cleanly.

He grabs for her hand, holds it in his own as he nods, meeting her eyes. "I will protect our home, I promise."

She softens at the words, recognizing the fervency in them, knowing the delicate balance of power and subservience he's to inherent. The balance their father has carried, all too heavily these many years since his pardon after the war.

Something bristles in Sansa at the thought of their father on his knees.

She has never known a wolf to kneel. Starks should be no different.

The gentle rubbing of Robb's thumb along her knuckle has her relaxing soon enough, tender under his affections. She clears her throat, smiling up at him. "And Father? What does he think of you in the capital?"

He scoffs, looking about the fine, red-stoned keep. "He hopes I'll finally find a bride."

Sansa laughs, soft and melodic. "Well, you are of an age." They've already passed quite the number of ladies sending tempting looks toward the heir of Winterfell throughout their walk, and she's absolutely certain Robb hasn't missed the looks either.

"I suppose I shall have to catch up to you then, little sister."

Sansa rolls her eyes, shaking her head, but her smile wilts slightly, tightening at the edges. She looks away.

Robb sighs, his eyes going to their joined hands. "I know this isn't what you wanted," he says softly, so soft she knows he's conscious of the many ears about the castle, as conscious as she is.

Her sharp-eyed, mindful brother, even under all his bravado.

"What I want," she says on a whisper, with less effort than she thought it'd take, "is to keep our family safe. The king has called. And I will do my duty." She finally meets his eyes again.

His gaze is that keen Tully blue. She will miss it when he goes. She grips his hands tighter.

So little time. But a moon. And then her family will return North – without her.

"It shouldn't be you," he says forcefully, a heavy breath drawn through his lungs, something of anger settling at the end of his words.

Sansa looks about, just the once, swiftly, beneath her lashes, before meeting his gaze again. "It shouldn't be a lot of things. But here we are."

Robb's face hardens, his ire at the situation bubbling forth and Sansa knows that look – has seen it enough times to recognize it. He's not the Young Wolf for nothing.

"Robb," she says placatingly.

He sighs, nodding, swallowing down his words.

She gives him a tender, understanding smile in return. "You know, Mother and Father didn't love each other at first. But they do now – so very much."

Robb doesn't argue, but she can tell he knows where she means to lead this.

Sansa licks her lips, her hesitance swallowed back. "Perhaps it can be the same with Prince Jon and I."

"You think you can love him? _Him_?" The words are a desperate plea more than they are a heated incredulity. Because they both know how this story ends if she cannot.

Sansa only shrugs, poised and resigned all at once. "I shall have to try." She gives him a determined look, attempting what she hopes is a reassuring smile. "The pack survives, after all."

Robb huffs, helpless, before resting his hand at the back of her head to tilt it forward for a kiss, his lips at her brow.

She smiles beneath the gesture, chest warm as he pulls away.

"Oh, that's sweet."

The voice has them turning to the sound, eyes landing on Princess Rhaenys as she walks arm in arm with her brother, Jon.

Sansa's eyes flick to her betrothed on instinct, tilting into a curtsey as her hands release Robb and grab for her skirts.

He only nods in greeting, still somber and silent. He's changed into practical leathers, Sansa notices, black from curls to boot.

"Princess Rhaenys," Robb greets. "Prince Jon."

"Stark."

Sansa almost scoffs at the greeting. Ill-mannered prince, indeed. She hides her disdain well behind a porcelain smile. "Can we expect to see you at the feast tonight?"

"Of course," Rhaenys says, smiling tartly. "The Starks in the capital. Who would miss it?"

"I should think it is rather the prince's betrothal that the people are celebrating," she says artfully.

"Celebrating, yes," Rhaenys muses, eyes flickering over to Robb. "Will you be long in King's Landing?"

"Long enough for the wedding," Robb answers, turning to Sansa with a comforting smile. "And a little while longer, if we can help it."

"You travel with a Greyjoy," Jon says suddenly, and Sansa blinks at him to find him already watching her.

The stare is unnerving.

Robb's eyebrows raise at the unexpected question. "Theon?"

"I saw him in your procession at the steps."

"Yes, well – "

"Are you Starks prone to keeping traitors?"

Sansa riles at the implication, but she has enough mind to reach out for Robb's arm, stopping his instinctual step forward before it is made obvious.

Jon's eyes catch the movement nonetheless, and Sansa's cheeks heat for it.

"We do not 'keep' him," Sansa bites out through pristine teeth. "He is our father's ward. And _your_ guest, as much as we are."

Jon's eyes narrow at the insinuation. "The Greyjoys were one of the first to rebel against my father's rule."

"And they paid for that," Sansa answers swiftly, before Robb can cut in. She bites her lip, considering her words more carefully. "Rightfully so," she adds, hand slipping from Robb's arm to clasp with her other one before her.

"And yet here he is."

"He is not here to cause trouble," Robb says tightly, head tilted slightly in deference.

Sansa is grateful for his leashing of his temper.

Jon grunts in acknowledgement. "I'll hold you to that, Stark."

Robb only nods, mouth thinning into a tight line.

Rhaenys looks between the two men, lips curling in amusement, before she tugs at her brother's arm in impatience. "Come, brother, I've still to ready myself for the feast tonight. Escort me to my chambers?"

Jon gives a final, cursory glance to Robb and Sansa, before turning to his sister with a look far less harsh than Sansa's seen on him yet. Not soft enough to call tender, but a subtle openness, a regard as fleeting as the golden light filtering through the halls.

"Of course," he answers her, all heat gone from his words.

Sansa narrows her eyes at the change, stomach knotting uncontrollably. It's rather vexing, she finds, to have no read on her betrothed at all. As staunch as the Wall, and seemingly as cold. But she's seen him smirk at his brother in amusement, and seen the way he straightened imperceptibly beneath his father's hand at his shoulder, and the way he cradles his sister's hand over his arm when they turn away with a curt nod of farewell.

 _A dragon pit_ , she reminds herself.

And she's afraid the flames are still yet to come.

Sansa shudders beneath her heavy wool dress, the blaring sun at her back not enough to warm the chill that's set in.


	2. Rancid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Sansa stumbles to a halt in his arms, watching as the whirling torchlight settles upon his face in harsh slants, a look about him too spiteful to be called lonely. And yet, lonely is exactly what she’d call it – on any other face.” - Jon and Sansa. Like the curve of the horizon, when the moon breaks from beneath its bow.

Disclaimer: I own nothing, I make no money.

From Instep to Heel

Chapter Two: Rancid

" _Sansa stumbles to a halt in his arms, watching as the whirling torchlight settles upon his face in harsh slants, a look about him too spiteful to be called lonely. And yet, lonely is exactly what she'd call it – on any other face."_ \- Jon and Sansa. Like the curve of the horizon, when the moon breaks from beneath its bow.

* * *

Jon surveys the room with disinterested eyes, watching as lords and ladies twirl upon the dance floor, laughter and raucous conversations drifting up from the tables. From his perch at the edge of the room, he can see the evening unfold in its entirety.

A shadow breaks across his light, and Jon turns his head just enough to catch sight of Rhaenys beside him as she raises a cup his way, smirk gilded in mischief over the rim of her wine. "Brother," she greets.

He answers with a responding grunt.

Rhaenys takes a sip, one arm crossed over her waist, the arm holding her glass tucked into her side. "Quite the event, hmm?"

Jon slides listless eyes her way.

She smiles in response, taking another sip. "Are you not happy with the turnout for your betrothal feast?"

Jon's dark gaze slips back toward the crowd. "Curs, all of them. Sniffing after scraps from Father's table."

Rhaenys sets her wine glass along the edge of the nearby column before leaning an arm atop Jon's shoulder, resting her chin there, perfectly manicured nails thrumming along his leather-clad shoulder. "Even the Starks?" she asks, eyes glinting in the firelight.

Jon takes a moment, gaze flitting over the head table where Ned Stark sits on one side of their father, with Aegon on the other. Beside the Warden of the North sits his eldest son, Robb Stark, and then beside him, Sansa.

Jon's betrothed.

He grinds his teeth, taking a large gulp of wine from his own glass. "The Starks are…" He stops, licks his lips, mulls the words over a moment before letting them to air. "A different sort entirely."

Rhaenys snorts at his shoulder. "Too proud, I'd say."

Jon's eyes shift to Sansa. She sits perfectly poised, hands held primly in her lap, smiling prettily at any lord or lady that engages her in conversation. His eyes catch on the wayward strand of copper that has escaped her pinned-up, braided hair. Sansa tilts her chin slightly, a graceful whip of her head – hardly noticeable – sending the strand back behind her ear. It creeps back steadily, and Jon watches as she frowns almost imperceptibly at the intrusion. He stifles an amused laugh. "Perhaps," he agrees breathily, never turning to his sister.

Rhaenys follows the path of his gaze, eyes narrowing in the firelight. She strums her fingers along his shoulder again, lifting her mouth to his ear. "She's a pretty thing, isn't she?"

Jon's eyes finally flick away from his betrothed, landing darkly on his sister half-draped against his side. "Rhaenys," he says warningly.

She runs a knuckle boldly down the side of his neck, eyes focused on the Northern bride at the head table. "A bit frigid though, it seems. A true winter rose," she scoffs, nose wrinkling.

Jon brings his cup back to his mouth, eyes dark across the rim as he focuses on his sister.

Rhaenys' lips are at his ear again, a breathy sigh raising the hair at the back of his neck, his fingers flexing over his wine glass. "I wonder…has she been plucked yet, do you think, dear brother?"

Jon licks the wine from his lips, glass lowering. His eyes stay fixed to Rhaenys' own dark ones. "Ned Stark knows better than to offer a tainted daughter to the crown," he says surely, a hint of danger to the words. "She is a maid."

"And does that excite you, brother? To be her first?" Rhaenys' eyes dance threateningly, a challenge in them that Jon will not rise to.

A bemused smirk lines his lips, his free hand coming up to play with the silk sleeve at her side, fingers dancing close to her hip. "If it did?" he asks nonchalantly, lips stained dark with wine.

Her eyes drift to his mouth for a moment, nails curling around his shoulder in her hold. "She's a Northern cunt, brother – don't forget it. Treason's in her blood."

Jon bites back the snarl before it can hit air, his fingers curling tightly in the fabric of her dress before he retracts his touch, pushing from her, gaze wondering back to the dance floor as he takes a large gulp of wine.

Rhaenys seems to notice her mistake half a breath too late.

"A Northern cunt," Jon muses, voice low. "Like my mother?"

Rhaenys stills beside him, hand hovering over his shoulder. "Jon," she tries, the name an intimate thing between them, voice hoarse and needy.

"Leave me," he says, near on a growl, grip tightening over his wine glass.

Rhaenys hesitates a moment, hand alighting his shoulder in silent apology.

Jon shrugs her touch off easily. "Now," he presses, jaw clenching.

She leaves him in a quiet flutter of silk.

Jon takes another large gulp of wine, finishing the cup entirely. When he looks back out across the floor, he finds Sansa staring up at him. He does not flinch from her intrusive gaze. Instead, he leans his arms over the rail before him, eyes steady on hers, hand rolling the empty wine glass in his hold.

She takes a steadying breath, hands tightening over her lap, and then she's turning to smile at something her brother has said, a delicate laugh lighting her lips.

Jon stays watching her for many moments, before he finally pulls from the rail, setting his cup beside Rhaenys' own abandoned one.

He does not look back once.

* * *

Sansa takes to the floor with her father for a round on the dancefloor sometime during the feast that night. He whirls her around like they have so many times before back at Winterfell, and the tension eases somewhat from her shoulders, her smile smoothing out of its practiced curve and into an open-mouthed laugh, easy and natural.

Bran asks for her hand next, and she takes it happily, feeling almost as though _she_ is the one whirling _him_ around, her steps more sure, her head still standing a few hairs taller than his, though not for long, she laments, feeling the growing strength of her little brother's shoulders beneath her hands.

Her chest tightens at the reminder, knowing that this is all the growing she may have left to witness. For how much time will he have to spare his sister in the coming months of his training? How often will even living in the same city feel like thousands of miles between them? She wonders if Rickon still refuses to brush out his hair and if Arya has torn another drees at the knees yet. She wonders if she will ever see any of them again before they are men and women grown.

She keeps the fragile quiver of her smile from her brother's gaze, dipping her head in thanks for the dance when the music eases at the end of a song, lulling toward a new one. She looks up to see Theon starting for her, a confident smile at his lips, before he stops, smile slipping, jaw clenching. Sansa catches the shadow over her shoulder before she realizes what has stopped Theon.

"My lady," Jon greets at her side suddenly.

She twists to meet his gaze, not missing the way his dark eyes flick warningly toward Theon before landing on hers.

It incenses her suddenly, and she finds her hands bunching in her skirts even as she curtseys. "My lord."

The music starts up again. Bran stands staring at them dumbly, one brow raised. Jon works his jaw, before motioning to the floor. "Dance with me."

It is not a request, and Sansa knows not to take it as such even if it were, her hand going out to meet his dutifully, lips pursed. He keeps his eyes ahead, leading her away from her brother as Bran nods his farewell, walking back toward Theon.

Sansa catches the flash of frustration that passes through Theon's eyes when she glances back to offer an apologetic look, before she's ushered into Jon's arms, one of his hands settling at her back, mid-waist, his other gripping her own hand. She gathers her skirts in her free hand and they're off.

It's a silent affair for many long moments, the air stilted between them, with Jon's eyes always about the room, never lighting on her, and with her own steady stare, studying him. He's very much like her father, she finds, in a somber, weathered sort of way – only in looks, of course, except for where it counts. There's nothing of ease in the lines of his face, and nothing of warmness in the crinkles at his lips, and nothing of familiarity in the grey of his eyes ( _Stark_ grey, she finds, now that the brilliance of torchlight flickering over the hall as they dance illuminates them well enough for her to truly see.)

And still, he does not look at her.

Sansa tries not to stiffen in his hold, her gaze falling from his face, barely managing to smother the huff of discomfort begging her lips for release. If it's such a chore to dance with her, then why had he bothered to ask her?

(Not that a prince need _ask_ for anything, she reminds herself carefully.)

"I suppose we should become more familiar with each other, seeing as we're to be married," he says suddenly, gruffly, as though in explanation for the unexpected dance.

Sansa blinks up at him, surprised after all the silence, before glancing back out at the room from over his shoulder as he twirls her. "Yes, that does tend to require conversation," she says tartly, biting her tongue almost instantly after she says it.

Jon finally looks down at her, and with the intensity of his stare, she almost wishes he'd go back to never looking at her at all. His lip twitches, but it's barely enough to be mentioned, and Sansa glances away again.

"Have you had the chance to dance much back at Winterfell?" he asks, and Sansa wants to laugh at the stiffness with which he says it.

She manages not to, though. "Some, my lord."

"With your brothers?"

"Mostly."

He grunts his acknowledgement, and Sansa catches sight of Theon watching them from across the floor, Robb at his elbow, eyeing them similarly. She turns and tucks her face back toward Jon's shoulder.

"You are rather proficient," he says finally, the hand at her back easing somewhat, losing its tension as it slides more comfortably toward the small of her back.

"I thank my mother's lessons for it," she answers, ignoring the tremor his touch lights up her spine.

He nods, glancing down to her again.

Sansa bites her lip, the hand not already held in his leaving her skirts to light along his shoulder. They are to be wed, after all. Touch is expected. Her fingers curl along the leather of his sleeve.

Jon's hand seems to press more firmly at her back, fingers splaying over her dress as he keeps her fixed to him, their legs threading through each other easily in their steps, never tangling in her skirts.

"You know the steps well yourself, my lord. Did…" she stops, considers it, tries again. "Did her Grace, the Lady Elia, teach you before her passing?"

Jon cocks his head as he watches her, eyes roving her face. "She did," is all he says.

Sansa nods, throat tightening. Her hand thrums along his shoulder. She takes a breath, expels it quickly. "Had you ever wished your own mother could teach you? Perhaps in the steps of the North?"

Jon's brows sharpen down immediately, his jaw clenching.

Sansa steals a breath through her nose, watching the shift. "I'm sorry, my lord, I only meant that – "

"She's dead," he clips out, dark eyes still fixed to hers. "What does it matter?"

The brusqueness of it takes her aback, an ache in her suddenly at the detachment he displays. She speaks before she realizes the words are on her tongue. "A great many things die. It does not mean we stop needing them."

A sneer finds its way along his lips. "I'm to need her, am I? A woman who abandoned her family for an already married man? A silly little girl too willful to learn the ways of the world before it killed her?"

Sansa's mouth parts indignantly, remembering the fond way her father had recalled her aunt Lyanna. To hear her spoken of so disparagingly stirs a meanness in her heart. "That's not – "

"Do not presume to tell me what I need, my lady."

Sansa exhales hotly, pulling from him mid-turn, but his hands hold her tight, bringing her back to his chest easily, a puff of hot breath breaking across her cheeks from his mouth. "I have not dismissed you," he says warningly, fingers bunching in the material of her dress at the small of her back.

Sansa lifts her chin, tongue tart with her indignation. "I am your betrothed, not your dog, and _you_ were the one who expressed a desire for familiarity, if you recall."

"But _not_ on account of my mother," he says firmly, eyes narrowing on her.

She takes to his turn of her about the room as though they never broke form. "And on what other common ground are we to find ourselves? We _are_ cousins, you realize. You've a family half a world away and you're telling me that means nothing to you?"

"I have a family here," he bites back.

It's said so tersely, so full of finality and abject certainty that it carves a piece of sorrow into her, suddenly and unexpectedly – like a gust of winter through a window never meant to be left open. Her throat constricts, her eyes blinking furiously up at his, nails curling at his shoulder when the breath rakes from her. "Have you never wanted to know us?" she asks softly, almost painfully, and it's not a familiar pain.

It's desolate and untethered and hammers about her ribs like a caged thing.

_The lone wolf dies_.

Sansa's eyes prick with a heated wetness.

"About as much as I imagine you wanted to know me, my lady," he answers her, lip curling at the admission, voice tight.

Sansa stumbles to a halt in his arms, watching as the whirling torchlight settles upon his face in harsh slants, a look about him too spiteful to be called lonely.

And yet, lonely is exactly what she'd call it – on any other face.

Jon blinks, his face shuttering away the expression almost instantly, his hand retreating from around her waist, stepping back from her.

They stand there simply breathing, eyes unflinching from each other, unerringly still amidst a whirl of bodies. She cannot find it in herself to walk away. So instead, she watches as he does.

She hardly notices the gentle touch of Robb's hand to her shoulder.

* * *

"You know, it's not proper to leave a lady before the dance is done," Aegon says at his side suddenly, eyes watching the dancefloor as he steps up to Jon.

Jon gives him a withering look from where he leans against the column. "I'm sure you know all about what's to be done 'proper' by a lady."

Aegon smiles, amused. "I could show you a thing or two."

"I know enough."

"Where to put it doesn't count."

"Aegon," Jon faintly growls, straightening from his lean.

Aegon sighs, picking imaginary lint from his shoulder. "You're so obtusely glum, Jon. It's souring my mood."

At that, Jon lets a chuckle escape, eyes roving back to the dancers before them. Sansa is in there somewhere, dancing with Robb. A wave of copper catches the light. Jon whirls the wine around his glass slowly, fingers tight on the stem.

Aegon glances at him out of the corner of his eye. "It's a good match," he says softly.

"You mean a necessary one."

Aegon is silent for a time, and Jon glances at him to find him staring at Daenerys while she sits at the head table. She's in all silver, iridescent in the torchlight, but as still and cold as metal, a patiently sheathed sword. Her eyes flick over to Aegon for a passing moment, and Jon reminds himself that even metal burns beneath fire. Daenerys offers what might pass as a smile to the unobserved eye but Jon and Aegon see it for the sneer it is.

Sometimes Jon understands Aegon's need to seek warmth elsewhere. Theirs were never meant to be matches of the heart. He's known this since a very young age. Known it in his bones. Known it since he first saw the way his father looked at Elia Martell from across the long width of the dinner table – a distant, tolerant sort of affection, a comfort borne of time and resignation and nothing of passion.

He remembers Rhaenys as a child, eyes bright and hopeful, looking at her parents for the sort of love she read about in books. He remembers curling his small palm over her own childlike one when her eyes had dimmed in disappointment.

Looking at Daenerys now, the way she uncrosses and re-crosses her legs at the ankle, a finely bowed wrist going for her wine glass, nodding at something Rhaegar says at her side – he cannot help the inkling of remorse he feels. Perhaps for her. Perhaps for Aegon.

Perhaps for much more than he can possibly fathom.

Jon sighs, looking down at his glass.

"I suppose you could do much worse," Aegon says, trying for levity.

Jon lifts a brow at that. "She's a Stark." As though that were enough damnation.

(He thinks it should be.)

Aegon laughs, abrupt and loud, swinging an incredulous look at his brother. "You say that like you aren't one yourself."

A scowl tugs at his lips. "I'm not."

"Well, _half_ of one, anyway."

"I'm _not_ ," Jon intones lowly, hand halting the swirl of his wine. He hates the way he sounds like a petulant child, but the fervency is there all the same, brimming beneath his tongue – an ages old wound still festering, despite the years.

Perhaps part of him will always be that motherless child.

Perhaps part of him will always be resentful.

Aegon simply watches him, violet eyes unreadable, hands moving to clasp behind his back with a regality Jon has never managed to master himself.

He feels the shame of his pettiness lancing through his chest, turning his gaze from his brother with a heated exhale.

_About as much as I imagine you wanted to know me, my lady_.

What does it matter, that they are blood? They were never the blood that counted – the blood that wanted him.

No. That's always been the Targaryen in him. That's always been the only family he needed.

He remembers suddenly, the time he and Aegon stole their father's horse for a midnight ride as children. Hardly made it through the stables and into the riding fields when they'd been thrown from the saddle, Jon breaking his arm in the tumble, Aegon suffering only a few minor scrapes. He remembers stubbornly limping after the horse in the night, refusing to wake the stable hands and ask for help for fear that they would report it to the king. Aegon trudged along reluctantly after him, until the exhaustion and fear wore him down enough to go running to their father just before the sun broke over the horizon with an accusing dawn, Jon hollering after him to _get back here, you traitor_.

Jon had made it back to the stables, tugging the horse behind him by the reins, his broken arm cradled to his side, weary and sleep-deprived and absolutely, all-consumingly _angry_ with his brother, when their father met him at the pen's doors, winded and wild-eyed.

"Jon."

He'd pulled up short, breathless, a heady shame filling him, eyes lowering to the straw floor instantly, hand tightening over the reins in his fatigued grip. "Father, I – " he croaks out, before his father's arms are coming around him, smothering his apology in the silk of his sleeve.

Jon stills, wincing slightly at the pain lancing up his arm with the embrace, feeling his father's hand curve around the back of his head, holding him to his shoulder, shuddering a worried breath at his temple. "Aegon said you'd been hurt," he huffs into Jon's dark hair, not angrily, but with an underlying frustration that blooms something needful in Jon's chest – a smothered kind of longing.

"I'm alright," he mutters out, eyes landing on Aegon over his father's shoulder.

He stands in the open doorway to the stable, the meager light of dawn breaking against his silhouette, a small crowd of servants gathering behind him.

Jon remembers the way Aegon had curled his hand along the wood threshold when their father finally released Jon, hands still clutching his shoulders, a sternness overtaking him that did nothing to stifle the tender stain of relief in Jon's lungs.

Looking at Aegon now, his silver hair framing his face, all soft angles and hard majesty, handsome and stately and strangely blinding (in much the same way as staring at the sun too long) – Jon wonders if he will ever forget the feel of Aegon's arms around his waist that night they rode their father's stolen horse, the suffocating terror that overtook him when they went flying, the way Aegon had sulked and stomped his feet before abandoning the search to run off to Rhaegar while Jon bellowed unprincely insults at his back.

The way their father cradled his face in his hands and demanded he swear never to do it again.

"I'm a Targaryen," he says finally, the words smarting along his tongue, even now. A need and an uncertainty all at once. "And she – " He stops, swallows. "She is nothing," he finishes tightly, the untruth a tremulous exhale as it leaves him.

He clamps his jaw shut over the words, letting them curl behind his teeth like a bite of blood – copper as her hair.

Aegon gives him an unconvinced look but says nothing, and Jon is grateful for the silence.

He does not tell his brother how the earnestness in her question had unhinged him.

" _Have you never wanted to know us?"_

Or how the harrowing stare she left him with seemed to peel his skin back with the efficiency of a practiced blade. Or how her pursed, pink mouth had rattled him beneath the sincerity of her words. Or how his hand had seemed to mold perfectly to the slender curve of her waist, the warmth of her seeping through the folds of her dress and taunting him like a fickle summer – for he had always been promised winter from the North, and had expected his new wife to be no different.

Jon swallows the remembrance back with a slice of unease.

How the heady urge to grip her even tighter had made him hazy and greedy.

(How it does even now, the imprint of her heat still lingering along his calloused palm.)

Jon licks his lips and stalks from his brother.

* * *

For all the friction last night's dance with Jon Targaryen had distilled in her, Sansa recalls the night of her betrothal celebration mostly with fondness and laughter. She does not, however, expect the same levity from the feast to set the tone for her stay in King's Landing. She's seen her father hold court with petitioners often enough to understand the workings of a lordship. She imagines it to be much the same when they take to the Southern court the next day, Rhaegar reclined on the Iron Throne, hosting supplicants in the main hall, Aegon seated similarly beside him.

"You should attend," her father had said to her. "Learn the lords and ladies. Familiarize yourself."

_Protect yourself_ , he did not say.

Sansa had nodded, understanding. Ned had rested his hand gently atop her head, smoothed her hair down, smiled wanly at her, and then left, taking his own place in the hall of Rhaegar's court. She stands now on one of the balconies overlooking the hall, after greeting so many of the lords and ladies earlier that morning. The sun peeks out from the high tops of the long windows, signaling its slow descent into afternoon. Sansa sighs imperceptibly, longing to take a turn outside. She's never seen quite so much color before, so many decadent gardens and golden sun and red-stoned walls. It's a different kind of beauty than Winterfell offers, difficult to appreciate when shuttered up in the barren throne room.

"Careful, my lady, your disinterest is showing," someone whispers at her shoulder, and Sansa turns swiftly at the sound to find Lady Margaery smirking beside her, a single, fine brow raised toward her.

She'd recently been introduced to the Rose of Highgarden that morning, along with her brothers and father. She'd not missed the way Robb's eye followed the lady when she left, and Sansa had to admit to finding herself rather breathless in her presence as well, at the low but attractive cut of her dress, the mischievous curl of her lips, the earnest way she'd grasped both of Sansa's hands in hers upon their greeting, instantly intimate and affectionate in a way Sansa had only ever experienced with Jeyne Poole back home.

Sansa blushes at Margaery's observation now, smiling at the other woman's keen expression. "I hope I haven't been too obvious," she whispers.

"Nonsense," Margaery hushes, wrapping her arm in hers. "I've simply been watching you, is all."

Sansa wants to laugh, but she holds it in, shaking her head.

"Though, I'm not the only one, it seems," she says enigmatically.

Sansa instinctively glances toward Jon, standing low on the steps beneath his father and brother, but his attention is on the current petitioner holding the floor. Her brows furrow, lips pursed in confusion at what Margaery could mean when she glances up from Jon, eyes landing on Aegon suddenly, blinking at the realization that he's watching her.

She sucks a quiet breath through her parted lips. The look on his face is inquisitive, curious, and it shouldn't cause a heat in her, yet it does. She has never been the center of a prince's attention before, and never so openly. It's not a look of desire or anything so inappropriate, but there's an openness to it, and it makes Sansa's throat go dry. She dares another glance toward Jon. He stares resolutely away from either of them,

She cannot explain the coil in her gut just then, the unease.

Margaery's pat along her hand breaks her from the stare. "Oh good, this looks to be the last one of the morning's session. I do so love the afternoon breaks. I'm famished, aren't you?" She turns a genuine smile toward Sansa.

"Well, I was going to find my brother Robb once court was dismissed. Ask him for tea."

"Oh let the boys get to know each other," she says, nodding at Robb speaking with her brother Loras down amongst the other lords. The hall begins to let out with Rhaegar's dismissal, the crowd mulling about. "Have lunch with me in the gardens. I'm to join the ladies Daenerys and Rhaenys."

Sansa withers at the idea, but she keeps her smile in place. It's a stupid thought, she tells herself. Rhaenys and Daenerys are to be her sisters by marriage. She should befriend them, get to know them at the least, not dread the sharing of a meal with them. Even so, she cannot help the recollection that neither Targaryen princess has yet to look as kindly upon her as Margaery has. It should be nice to have a friend at King's Landing though.

Sansa thinks of Jeyne Poole, of Arya, even. No, she would not have them here, and perhaps that is best. Winter roses tend to wither in the Southern sun.

Sansa looks at Margaery.

But _this_ rose…

She smiles, clasping the other lady's hand in hers. Some roses yet have thorns. Sansa has always admired such resilience. Margaery smiles wickedly and Sansa is instantly captivated. Yes, she thinks, it should be nice to have a friend.

Sansa nods her answer, letting Margaery guide her out the hall. She never notices the pair of eyes following her – Stark grey.

* * *

Jon walks beside Aegon through the gardens, hands at his back, eyes ranging over the tall flowers and perfectly landscaped bushes with indifference. "You were staring," he says without prompt.

Aegon flicks a low hanging leaf from his path. "Hmm?"

"At Sansa Stark."

"Was I?"

Jon stops, giving his brother a deadpan look.

Aegon smothers his chuckle behind his fist, clearing his throat. "Yes, well, you were hardly giving the girl the attention she deserves."

Jon turns fully to him now. "We were in the midst of court."

"Yes, and your lady was clearly bored."

"Hearing petitions is a necessity of ruling. It is not for amusement. Even she must know this, given that she was present in the first place." Jon begins to walk again, not waiting for his brother. Aegon meets his pace with quick strides regardless. "It speaks to her understanding of her new position that she was there at all. A lady of the court _should_ be familiar with her kingdom's ails."

"Then perhaps you should have entertained her while there, brother," Aegon teases, glancing at him from the corner of his eye. "Why was she not at your side?"

Jon is silent for a moment, and then, "We are not married yet."

His brother only answers with a raised brow.

"And even when we are, she may go where she wishes. She is not required to stay always with me."

"But don't you want her there?"

He has never wanted the company of any woman so, not even Rhaenys, who has held the bulk of his affections since childhood. He hardly thinks that will change, even with marriage.

Even with Sansa Stark.

Jon's tongue goes heavy in his mouth, remembering how his eyes had found her instantly in the crowd, her copper hair catching shades of sunlight through the long windows. Her dress was a soft iris, almost mauve, with a dragonfly pin at the bust, and Jon had bristled unexplainably at the sight of her, the color of her dress, perhaps inadvertently, closer to the shade of his brother's eyes than his, and what in the seven was _wrong_ with him for noticing that?

It's ridiculous, really.

"It's not a matter of want," he tells Aegon, hoping his answer is enough.

It is not, apparently.

Aegon bends to sniff a tall flower, stopping them in their trek. Jon waits diligently at his side. Straightening, Aegon fingers the edge of one petal. "You do not desire her? As a woman?"

Jon works his jaw at the question. Desire is not the issue. He imagines it will take very little to rouse him when the time comes to bed her. He is not simple enough to miss the supple curve of her breasts or the willowy line of her waist in the modestly cut bodice of her dress. Nor does he miss the pale flex of her throat when she speaks, the slender arch of her wrist, the pink, tempting purse of her lips.

(Neither has he missed the frost of her gaze, the cool intensity of her stare , and yet _this_ – this rattles him more than anything, makes his skin grow tight, his mouth dry.)

Jon adjusts the collar of his tunic, clearing his throat. "Of course I desire her. What man wouldn't?"

Aegon gives him a predatory smile and Jon regrets the question immediately, groaning his incredulity as he rolls his eyes. "But I should hope to find more use for a wife than a good fuck," he says testily.

"And you may yet," Aegon tells him, tugging at the petal in his grip until it breaks from the flower. He swipes his thumb over the softness of it, keeping it pressed between his fingers. "The North may finally come to heel."

Jon's face darkens.

Aegon looks at him then, fingers tightening over the petal in his grasp. He is all at once sunlit and shadowed. "I will not permit them to break from the crown," he says lowly, the words a tight breath of air.

Jon nods, mouth a thin line, the air gone from him suddenly. Something shifts in the space between them, a familiar tremor lighting Jon's spine with the way Aegon's face slips into a striking coldness.

Aegon gives him a considering look, before he releases the petal between his fingers, letting it flutter to the ground unhindered. All mirth has left him, the angular cut of his jaw a harsh thing in the glaring sunlight, his eyes violet and immutable. "We need this marriage. What use you find for Sansa Stark is your own business, so long as the North remains loyal, and _you_ are going to ensure that, little brother."

Jon recognizes the shift in Aegon's tone, the eerie way that playfulness turns abruptly to a cutting warning, like the toss of a coin.

"You are my brother, and I love you," Aegon continues, stepping toward him, heedless of the broken petal now crushed beneath his boot (or perhaps not heedless at all), "but this is not negotiable. You will make an effort, do you understand me?"

"I do," Jon answers firmly, eyes never leaving his, fervent in his promise.

Aegon watches him a moment longer, before he seems satisfied, nodding, taking to the path once more. Jon follows silently, jaw aching beneath the force with which he clenches it.

He has a place, after all, as all bastards do – even royal ones.

He does not admit to the resentment still lingering between his ribs, first anchored there many years ago – affection turned rancid.

Because here's the truth:

The morning after they stole their father's horse, Jon had taken the lashings, admitting to the theft that had, in truth, been entirely his brother's design.

He remembers Rhaenys wailing for their father to stop, Daenerys tugging her out of the hall with an admonishing tut, a glare for him in her passing. And he remembers the sharp flick of the thin leather riding crop across the backs of his calves as he held his breeches up over his knees with trembling, white knuckles. And he remembers Aegon standing at the edge of their father's chair, watching with an unnerving stillness, nails digging into the armrest at his side, eyes glinting dangerously in the torchlight as a perverse smile spread slowly over his thin lips.

Jon swallows tightly, hands clenching behind his back. He keeps to his brother's pace, smothering that flare of bitterness in his chest. There is no use in bringing the rot to air, after all.

_My brother, and I love you_ , he reminds himself, like a ringing of the bells, a discordant, air-sundering hail.

He looks at Aegon now, the sharpness of his profile obscured somewhat in the garden's ill-fitting light.

Jon remembers wincing with every flick of the crop.

And he remembers that his brother never had.

(Not once.)


	3. Unwanted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Sansa sighs, pushing the memories down. But he stays there, always, just under her skin. Pricking at her awareness like a splinter. There is no digging him out.” - Jon and Sansa. Like the curve of the horizon, when the moon breaks from beneath its bow.

Disclaimer: I own nothing, I make no money.

From Instep to Heel

Chapter Three: Unwanted

" _Sansa sighs, pushing the memories down. But he stays there, always, just under her skin. Pricking at her awareness like a splinter. There is no digging him out."_ \- Jon and Sansa. Like the curve of the horizon, when the moon breaks from beneath its bow.

* * *

"Tell us about Winterfell, Lady Sansa."

It's not the request she expects when she sits down to a garden lunch with the Targaryen princesses and Margaery Tyrell. Sansa blinks at Daenerys' question, hand stilling her cup of tea halfway toward her mouth. "Winterfell? You wish to know of my home?"

"Exactly what I'm wondering," Rhaenys says on a curious exhale, one dark brow piqued at Daenerys.

Daenerys offers her a humoring smile. "You may not be interested in much past these walls, Rhaenys, but I, for one, should very much like to know about _all_ our seven kingdoms."

Sansa does not miss the note of possession to the words, and she has to remind herself that this is the future queen sitting before her. She sets her cup down demurely. "It could hardly compare to King's Landing, I'm sure," Sansa says.

"King's Landing is grand, there's no doubt about that," Margaery agrees, "But nothing is ever quite so exquisite as home, is it?" she asks sincerely, a knowing smile gracing her lips. She nods to her then. "Do tell us, Lady Sansa," she urges, popping a grape into her mouth.

Sansa softens at Margaery's encouragement, a fond remembrance already blooming in her chest. It is never far from her mind. The words come to her tongue unbidden, as though she'd been aching to speak them for ages. "It's the most beautiful place I know," she begins.

Daenerys settles back in her seat, listening with fingers folded gracefully over her lap. Rhaenys takes a long sip of tea. Margaery leans somewhat over the arm of her chair, inclined toward Sansa.

"It's… grey," Sansa says.

Daenerys raises a brow. Rhaenys sets her cup down, an unimpressed look on her face.

Sansa shakes her head, shifting in her seat. "Not grey like stone, or cloud, or anything quite so dull, though of course there is that, but – it's grey like…like morning snow, or…or like hand-spun wool," she says excitedly, her hands moving about in her explanation. "Grey like Steward Poole's hair," she giggles fondly. "A warm grey. And _loud_ sometimes, seven help me, the clanging of the boys' sparring in the yard early morning, and Ser Rodrick shouting about after Rickon when he flees his lessons, and Arya terrorizing the scullery maids when she shows up with another mud-soaked dress my mother _surely_ wouldn't approve of, and yet, oh, how unearthly _quiet_ it can be at night. So quiet you can hear the wolves in the wood out past the walls if you listen hard enough. And the hot springs! And the glass gardens! And oh, the godswood in winter – such a sight. You'll never know the true North until you've sat beneath a red wierwood amidst the snow. And…and…" She stops, breathless, eyes bright, coming back to herself slowly. Her cheeks tinge pink instantly. "And I'm rambling."

Margaery smiles affectionately at Sansa's squirming. "Adorably so," she assures, popping another grape into her mouth.

Sansa laughs at that, shaking her head at Margaery, and then turning to the other two women. She catches Rhaenys looking at her with an expression she's never seen before, brows furrowed keenly, mouth parted, dark eyes acutely aware of every word Sansa gushes. It's a look bordering almost on yearning, or perhaps maybe just a soft wonder, intangible and inexplicable. The expression is shuttered away almost instantly, another tip of her cup to her lips hiding it away, as though it had never been, her eyes averted the moment Sansa's reach hers.

Sansa frowns, tucking the image away, fleeting in its earnestness.

"You miss it," Daenerys muses.

Sansa lets out an inescapable sigh, smiling sheepishly. "Terribly so."

"I still remember the way the honeysuckle wrapped around the balcony of my room back at Highgarden," Margaery says, winding her slender fingers around a ream of silk from her skirts. "How the morning light lit the colored panes of the high windows." Her smile widens beneath her faint chuckle. "How grandmother had half the kitchen staff cursing up a storm before we even broke our fast." Her chuckle settles into a nostalgic hum, her finger winding round and round the sliver of silk at her leg, as though lost in thought. She shakes her head slightly, giving Sansa a knowing look. "It's rather cruel of the gods, wouldn't you say, to make us miss such silly things when they are gone?" she asks conspiratorially.

Sansa shares her smile, the ache suddenly less somehow.

It's a small comfort, but a welcomed one, to not be the only homesick girl at the table.

Daenerys fingers the edge of her teacup thoughtfully. "I suppose Rhaenys and I have been fortunate in that, to never have a need of leaving home. Not yet at least."

Rhaenys throws her a withering look but Daenerys doesn't even bother acknowledging it, bringing her cup to her lips then.

Something unspoken passes between the two Targaryen women. But it's too vague to pick up on and Sansa doesn't think they'd take kindly to her scrutinizing it any further, regardless. So, she turns back to Margaery instead. "How long have you been in King's Landing?"

"Seven, I couldn't say," she answers, reaching for the last raspberry tart just before Rhaenys swipes it from the center plate. Margaery eyes her coolly. "Long enough, I'm sure," she laughs disingenuously, glancing back toward Sansa.

"Certainly long enough to trap a husband by now," Rhaenys taunts, breaking off a piece of the pastry with a knowing smirk. She flicks the flakes from her fingers daintily.

Sansa swings wide eyes at the princess' remark, but Margaery only laughs.

"And yet not as long as some, I should say," she remarks pointedly.

"We are in entirely different circumstances, Lady Margaery. You can hardly compare our situations," Rhaenys throws out.

Daenerys mumbles something under her breath, rolling her eyes in the most ladylike fashion Sansa has ever seen. She huffs behind her teacup.

Margaery offers Rhaenys an impish grin, leaning over the arm of her chair toward her. "And yet here we both sit, unmarried, and fighting over the last raspberry tart like an old, stodgy couple."

"Oh, have the blasted thing then," Rhaenys relents, abandoning the pastry. Margaery offers a sickly sweet smile, reaching for it with a light chuckle. Sansa watches the exchange in steadily growing alarm.

She must admit to her curiosity at Rhaenys being yet unmarried, eldest of King Rhaegar's children, certainly at marriageable age, and clearly a beauty. It's apparent how partial Rhaeger is to his only daughter, and perhaps he simply cannot bear to part with her just yet. Even still, it hardly seems reason enough. But it is not proper to ask after such things, and Sansa is not so curious as to offend her soon-to-be family. She startles somewhat, though, at the ease with which Margaery comments on it.

She wonders if she should be wary of such boldness, but instead, she finds herself in quiet admiration of it.

Daenerys sets her teacup back to her plate with a delicate clang. "You spoke of the godswood," she says, breaking the silence as she looks up at Sansa.

Sansa picks at the piece of honeyed bread atop her plate half-heartedly. "Yes, it's quite large. Much larger than the one here. And…different somehow. I can't explain it."

"You take to the old gods?" Rhaenys asks, her attention drawn back to Sansa with the conversation.

"I keep the Seven, like my mother," Sansa answers.

Rhaenys hums in acknowledgement.

"Then you'll be wed at the Sept of Baelor?" Margaery asks. "Not the godswood, as I've heard Northmen often do."

Sansa considers the question for a moment, mindful not to meet Rhaenys or Daenerys' eyes when she answers, though she doesn't know why it should matter. "Even if I had wanted a godswood wedding, I don't think it would be in good taste to go against Prince Jon's wishes, were he to propose we wed in the sept."

Rhaenys releases a snort at the comment. "Jon is hardly pious. I doubt it'd make any difference to him." She's staring down at her teacup, swirling the thin silver spoon around the liquid distractedly, lips pursed.

Sansa watches her for a moment. "Even still, I think it is best we wed as the Prince prefers – sept or not. My mother was fortunate enough to keep her customs and her faith when she married my father, but I don't expect the same – especially here in the capital." She stills instantly, mind finally registering the words that have left her mouth. She blinks up at Daenerys with a thrum of panic, eyes wide, cheeks blazing. "I don't – of course, I do not mean – "

"You're very dutiful, Lady Sansa," Daenerys observes with a hint of amusement, reaching for the teapot at the center of the table to refill her cup.

Sansa nearly groans, managing to smother the instinct just barely. "Hardly," she admits, teeth worrying her bottom lip. "I can't even keep from offending Prince Jon on my first night as his betrothed."

Rhaenys straightens in her seat with quiet interest, hand halting in its stirring of her now cold tea.

"I don't see how you could," Margaery quips, a teasing smirk already tugging at her lips, "given the way he was looking at you for half the night."

Sansa blinks at her, her voice straining when she shakes her head vehemently at the Tyrell, "He wasn't – "

"Could you be any more uncouth, Lady Margaery?" Rhaenys asks, setting her spoon down rather forcefully.

Margaery leans back in her chair nonchalantly, smoothing her hands over the silk of her skirts. "Is it uncouth to speak the truth? To say that a man may appraise his intended?"

Sansa thinks of Jon's hand at the small of her back, his fingers firm, anchoring at the base of her spine. She thinks of the hot expel of his breath against her cheeks as he dragged her back to him when she made to break away. She thinks of the way her heart had hammered in her ribcage when he pressed his chest to hers – daringly intimate in a way no dance has ever been before.

She thinks of the way he stared at her across the hall, rolling the wine around his glass languidly, a quiet, dangerous heat to his gaze.

Such eyes should be familiar. Stark grey. _Familiar_.

(But there is nothing familiar in the way he looks at her.)

Sansa's throat goes dry, her tongue darting out to wet her lips.

"How do you think you offended him?" Daenerys asks, drawing her attention back to the conversation.

Sansa shifts in her seat, clearing her throat. "I…I asked about his mother."

Rhaenys lets out a stunted laugh, a pretty sort of sneer aimed her way. "Then you deserve whatever censure he gave you," she snaps.

The heat of her remark jars Sansa somewhat, her mouth opening, but finding no words to follow. She watches as Rhaenys curls her nails into her palms, mouth thinning into a tight line. She wonders, wildly, if she has known such censure herself.

"You're not without your graces, dear girl, or your tact," Margaery consoles at her side. "I hardly imagine you ventured anything untoward."

Sansa pulls her lip between her teeth once more, glancing at the other woman with unease. "I had thought to share a connection, that is all. To find some common ground. He's of the North himself, after all, and – "

"He is _not_ of the North," Rhaenys interrupts vehemently.

Sansa swallows back her words, hands bunching in her lap when she looks at Rhaenys. "My lady?"

Daenerys taps a nail along her porcelain teacup. "Rhaenys," she says lowly, almost in warning.

Rhaenys ignores her, eyes boring into Sansa's. "He's not yours. He's _ours_. And this marriage of yours is going to go a lot smoother once you understand that fact. You Starks never wanted him in the first place. Why should he think you would want him now?"

The words hitch somewhere between her ribs – sharp and intangible. A breath caught along her tongue. A sourness. Like the dregs of wine from the bottom of a cup. A barrel-scraping.

Hollow.

_About as much as I imagine you wanted to know me_.

She hadn't. And that's the truth. She'd never thought about this cousin of hers past an imminent betrothal. Never considered what he looked like, how he spoke, the way he dressed. Never considered his longings, or his fears, or his struggles. Never thought to think of him past a name.

Jon Targaryen.

(She forgets that the other part of him is Jon Stark – forgets that they'd never had a chance to teach him what that means.

Maybe worse – he'd never had the chance to ask.)

Sansa frowns, the regret tugging at her gut until she is near sick with it.

Had her father tried to write him at all? Had he ever made a venture south to see his only nephew? Had he ever looked beyond his own loss enough to recognize when the pack had splintered?

An even, calming chill overtakes her,

There is a rending in House Stark. And Sansa is meant to be the stitch.

She finds she is woefully unprepared.

Sansa's nails dig half-moons into the tender skin of her palms.

"You give him too many allowances," Daenerys admonishes Rhaenys, a sharp cut to her frown. "It isn't ladylike." The tone is sour – an acrid, degrading thing.

Rhaenys narrows her eyes at Daenerys, scoffing. "And you don't give him enough," she counters, voice low.

Margaery eyes the exchange with a shrewd look, gaze flicking between the two Targaryens,

Rhaenys huffs her frustration, leaning back in her seat. "Don't pretend you see him as anything other than a bastard, Daenerys." Her dark eyes swing spitefully toward her aunt – her sister now. "It isn't ladylike," she mocks.

Daenerys offers a pinched smile, turning her gaze toward Sansa. "You'll have to forgive Rhaenys. She and Jon have always been…close."

A steady silence pervades the table. A soft breeze flutters the hair at Sansa's brow, sweat-lined though it is in this dry summer, this sweltering southron sun. She feels the heat of it bearing down on her like a threat.

She finds she hasn't the inclination toward such fire.

No. Give her cold. Giver her ice and snow and endless white. Burning consumes. But freezing preserves.

So, she will be ice. Beneath a Southron sun, surrounded by dragon fire – she will be ice.

"I understand," she says finally, face blanking out into an unreadable mask, hands still bunched demurely in her lap, though her fingers no longer clench together, her elbows no longer stay locked. She eases back into the relaxed yet prim posture her mother always taught her.

Let courtesy be her armor. She will endure. Ice always does, after all.

"I am close with my brothers as well, Robb especially. I think I can – "

The jarring scrape of Rhaenys' chair pushing from the table stops the words along Sansa's tongue. "Please excuse me," she mutters, standing swiftly, and then stalking from the table, out into the gardens, the purple silk of her dress fluttering after her in the breeze.

Sansa swallows tightly, watching her retreat.

_He's not yours_.

She's never felt it so keenly until now.

Daenerys sighs across the table, adding another spoon of sugar to her tea, seemingly unsurprised by Rhaenys' sudden departure.

Margaery pops another grape into her mouth, settling back in her seat, one leg crossing over the other. "Well then," she says, "Shall we call for wine?"

* * *

Rhaenys is stalking from one of the gazebos in the gardens when Jon and Aegon come upon her. She stops short when she notices them. She glances back down the way she came, and then back again toward her brothers.

Jon eyes the motion with unease. "Rhaenys?"

She huffs, smoothing her hands down her skirts, regaining her poise. "Join me for a walk, brother? Your betrothed has soured my mood."

Jon's eyes narrow. "What did you say?"

Aegon watches with a bemused smirk beside Jon.

She scoffs. "Nothing unwarranted."

Jon grumbles beneath his breath, wiping a hand down his mouth. "Rhaenys, you can't…"

She stares up at him, mouth a thin line, something teetering on the edge of her expression. He doesn't let himself call it vulnerability.

And he's just so tired suddenly, so worn down by exhaustion – this upkeep, this smokescreen. It was easier when he could take her mouth with his. It was easier when they could pretend they wouldn't be promised to others. It was easier when he could take comfort where he could, fleeting and temporary though it was.

(The truth is, it was never easier. It was just nearness. Just proximity. Filling a need.)

He thinks maybe this isn't how one is supposed to love – if you can call it love in the first place.

Rhaenys stays staring at him, a silent demand.

A flash of frost-lit eyes crosses his mind – another kind of demand. An honest kind. The sincerity of it lights a keen ache in his chest.

_Have you never wanted to know us?_

And here's the rub:

He had – once upon a time.

"Jon," Aegon says beside him, a question and an urging, all at once.

"I'll find you later," he tells him, walking off toward the gazebo Rhaenys had left. She grabs for his arm, stopping him as he passes her.

"Jon," she says softly, almost pitifully, like a wounded animal.

He remembers the way Ned Stark had looked upon his daughter, and the way Robb had tenderly kissed her forehead, and the way Sansa had laughed as she twirled around the floor in Bran's arms.

He looks at Rhaenys.

No, he does not think this is how one is supposed to love. But he knows no other way.

He slips his arm from her hold easily, as though she had expected it, her grip already slacking.

He knows no other way but fiercely and painfully and selfishly.

So, he goes.

Rhaenys watches him leave.

* * *

She's sitting at the gazebo's table with Daenerys and Margaery Tyrell when he comes upon her, afternoon light filtering in through the garden's walls of flora, her eyes lighting sharply when she glances up at his presence.

"My ladies," he greets.

Daenerys leans back in her seat, appraising him. "Come to join us for tea, nephew?" she asks incredulously, disbelief marring her features.

He looks to Sansa, noting her wide eyes and flushed cheeks. "I've come to…" He stops. Because he doesn't know what he's come to do, really. Hadn't thought anything past finding her. It's an unnerving feeling – this uncertainty.

Sansa opens her mouth, closes it, continues staring up at him.

Daenerys arches a brow in the ensuing silence.

He very nearly groans his frustration, two seconds from turning and stalking from the garden, abandoning…whatever it is lingering in the air between them.

But Margaery slaps her hands to her armrests, standing swiftly. "Well," she begins, "I do believe it's time I visited grandmother."

Sansa looks up at her almost pleadingly. The look makes Jon's lip curl.

Is she so uncomfortable to be left alone with him?

"Shall I call upon you tomorrow?" Margaery asks her.

Sansa smiles up at her. "I'd like that."

Margaery squeezes her hand then, excusing herself from the table with a polite farewell to Jon and Daenerys before she's off.

Sansa watches her go rather forlornly before she stands herself, nodding toward Daenerys. "Thank you for the tea, Lady Daenerys, but I think I should be on my way as well." She turns, offering a short curtsey. "Prince Jon." She moves to leave.

He steps in her path.

Sansa stops, glancing up at him, mouth pursed tight.

He hesitates a moment, the words stalling on his tongue, and then he breathes deep and lets them to air. "May I escort you back, my lady?"

Sansa stares at him, hands holding her skirts. He can see the flex of her throat when she swallows. "Yes, thank you, my lord," she answers in a quiet voice.

Jon steps aside to let her pass, nodding to Daenerys in farewell, and then resuming an even pace beside Sansa. She glances at him out of the corner of her eye and Jon bristles beneath the curious stare.

He sighs. Better not to entertain small talk, he figures, remembering the stiff conversation they shared during their first dance before it took a more…personal turn.

"I don't know what Rhaenys said to you but," he pauses, licking his lips, "But you shouldn't give it too much weight."

Sansa is quiet beside him. Too quiet. He chances a glance at her and finds her watching the stones at their feet. "My lady," he ventures.

"She didn't say anything that wasn't true," she says lowly, and he can't rightly tell whether it is resentment or resignation that colors her words.

Somehow, Jon doubts her reassurance.

They continue walking. They make it out the gardens in steady silence, back into the sunlit halls, their boots resounding over the stones. She stays with her hands holding her skirts, and he with his hands held at his back.

"Did you mean it?" she asks suddenly.

Jon furrows his brows at her, his pace never stuttering beside her. "Mean what?"

She pulls her bottom lip between her teeth, glancing up at him with hesitance. But there's a steely sort of determination there as well. In the way she doesn't look away. The way her breathing stays even. The way her voice doesn't waver when she asks him, "That you had no interest in knowing us. Your… your Stark half."

The question should light a familiar indignation in him, should spark a meanness too long honed. It should. And yet it doesn't.

Jon stops in the middle of the corridor, Sansa stilling beside him, eyes never leaving his.

Maybe it's the way she says it. Or that she says it at all. That she revisits such a topic even after he had so cruelly shut her down the night before. Jon blinks at her. He doesn't understand why it should matter so much to her. Doesn't understand why she risks another rebuke, another humiliation.

(He's not proud of it – leaving her in the middle of the dancefloor for everyone to see, biting back against her earnestness with a spiteful tongue. A child's indignation, really.

No, he's not proud of it at all.)

Jon clears his throat. "Even if I did, it would hardly matter now, don't you think?"

She worries her lip between her teeth, brows scrunching down in thought. "You're very…"

Jon arches a brow. "Blunt? Practical?"

"Fatalistic," she answers.

Jon hums his acknowledgement.

Sansa releases her skirts, hands folding over each other before her. "It seems a rather lonely way to be," she says softly, almost reluctantly.

Jon sucks a slow breath through is teeth, clenching his jaw. "I'm not," he says stiffly.

She seems unconvinced, a sorrowful expression gracing her features, and something stirs in Jon's gut at the look – an unfamiliar pang, a need, a flare of helplessness. He shoves it down quickly.

She turns fully to him, head bowed slightly, that sorrow still lingering in her eyes.

Jon wants to rip it from her suddenly, wants to push and drag and corner her, wants to wipe that sorrow clean off and watch it be replaced with fury, like the cut of her gaze the night before when she'd censured him.

That.

He wants _that_.

He wants what can snap back – like the lick of flames, the heat of fire.

But she is all calm and coolness before him. She is all winter-hewn stillness.

He wants to laugh suddenly. He should have known a daughter of the North would bring nothing but ice.

(He doesn't admit to the slow fever blooming within. She couldn't be balm enough, anyway. Ice or not.)

Jon steps toward her, closing the space between them, mouth opening, words drenching his tongue in their vile reproach –

"I'm sorry."

Her words still him, the whisper of them washing over him as though they were a gale. His chest constricts, his tongue grows heavy. Jon wavers in place, staring at her. "What?" he croaks out finally.

Sansa's lids flutter softly as her gaze falls somewhat, settling on his chest instead of his dark, unblinking eyes. She takes a breath, slowly lets it to air. "I'm sorry if I hurt you when I asked about your mother."

Jon swallows tightly, stepping back from her.

Sansa notices, glancing back up. She takes a step forward, closing the space between them once more. "It wasn't my intention, please, you have to know that, my lord. And I won't…I won't ever ask again, if that is what you wish." She sighs, hands wringing themselves in their hold. "We are to be wed. And I should like to be a proper wife to you, my lord. To share with you your burdens, to be your confidante, your comfort. I want to make this marriage work, and from what I gather, an openness between man and wife is key to that. But," and here she stops, brows furrowing, licking her lips before she continues, "But I won't push. I won't ask of you more than you are willing to share. When – _if_ – you are ready to speak on it, then I will be here. And if you're never ready? Then…then I will respect that."

It overtakes him suddenly – a wildness, a heated anxiety. He grips at her arms, dragging her into him. She startles at the touch, eyes blown wide, hands bunching at his chest. He stares down at her, breathing deeply. "What do you want from me?" he seethes out.

Her mouth parts, her head shaking. "I don't…I don't – "

He leans toward her, his hot breath breaking over her cheeks, his grip unrelenting on her arms. "What do you _want from me?_ " His voice cracks, his face darkening as he swallows back the break, eyes boring into hers. His fingers flex over her arms, cradling the heat of her to his chest. He doesn't miss how she arches unconsciously against him, or how her breaths come shallow and quick, or how her tongue darts out to wet her lips in her uncertainty. His gaze drops to her mouth for the fraction of an instant.

"I don't want anything from you," she whispers brokenly, still wide-eyed and breathless against him.

Jon clutches her tighter to him and he can feel the tremble that racks her body, pressed so close to his. He draws a slow breath through his lungs, gaze lowering to the pale expanse of her throat, watching it flex beneath her tight swallow. "Everybody wants something," he says darkly, gaze still fixed to her throat, fingers curling over her arms, something coiling tight and low in his gut with the way she slumps against him.

Her fists at his chest unfurl hesitantly, clutching at his leathers. She blinks up at him, chest heaving, mouth a sudden, harsh frown. "You will unhand me, my lord," she demands in a low voice, never wavering.

Jon's eyes shift back up to hers, dark and narrowed. He breathes against her, holding her still. She makes no move to pull from him, but she doesn't need to. Her eyes narrow imperceptibly, once again frost-lit, the color of dusk beneath a winter moon.

But for all her icy veneer, it's heat that suffuses him.

(A different kind of fever.)

Jon releases her, hands uncurling from her arms, stepping back in a single, swift motion.

She glares at him coldly, hands going to rub at her arms.

He opens his mouth, though he doesn't know what words will tumble forth, and perhaps it's just as well, because her brother comes around the corner then.

"Sansa," Robb calls fondly, a hand raised in greeting, eyes alighting on Jon a moment later. He offers a short bow.

"Thank you for escorting me, Prince Jon," Sansa says stiffly, words just graceful enough not to be called a hiss.

He hears the rebuke all the same.

And no, he was wrong – this isn't what he wants, not this fury, and not her sorrow either, and – gods, but he doesn't _know_ what he wants from her.

(Everybody wants something.)

Jon swallows thickly, the words a stifling reminder.

He's spent too many years wanting what he shouldn't, after all. Why should Sansa Stark be any different?

Robb walks toward them, Sansa meeting him halfway down the hall, and he offers his arm to her. She nearly takes it, but her hand hovers mid-air instead, before curling back to her side. "I'll meet you in the parlor?" she asks, her gaze turned from Jon, so that he cannot see the expression on her face when she speaks to her brother.

Robb blinks at her, his eyes shifting between them. It's a curious stare – a cautious one. Jon does not blame her brother. He wouldn't trust himself with her either.

"Alright then," Robb says finally, nodding to her, and then retreating back the way he came. He chances one last look over his shoulder, and then he rounds the corner entirely.

Something tells Jon to move to her – every fiber in his being telling him to close the distance, to feel her pressed against him once more. He takes an unconscious step forward, lungs tight in his chest, skin itching, hands curling and uncurling at his sides. Another step.

She turns, glancing at him over her shoulder.

He stills instantly, a handful of paces from her.

_Make the effort_ , Aegon had said. Jon blinks at the remembrance, staggering in place.

It isn't his brother's command that urges him forward, he finds. It's something worse.

(He moves to her because he _wants to_.)

The realization roots him to the floor with a startling clarity.

Sansa takes a deep breath, brows drawn down, her eyes over her shoulder all at once damning and consolatory. "I'm sorry if we ever made you feel unwanted," she says, the words a rush of air, hands bunching in her skirts. And then she's turning, a subtle nod of politeness her only farewell, and he's left staring at her back, at the stream of her copper hair glinting in the sunlight as it creeps through the open windows, before she turns the corner after her brother, and is gone.

His hand hovers mid-air, closing over nothing, and he looks to it, disconcerted, suddenly realizing that he had reached for her without his knowing.

_It seems a rather lonely way to be_.

His hand lowers instantly, bunching into a fist at his side. He stands there in the corridor for long moments, just breathing.

Just breathing.

And what a stupid, hopeful girl. To care so much – when he's given her every reason _not_ to care.

Jon clenches his jaw, skin thrumming beneath the searing flare of regret at his chest – unnamable and without form. He closes his eyes – clamps down on it.

Just a stupid, hopeful girl.

(But that she cares.)

Jon growls, the sound bit off behind clenched teeth.

Something takes hold of him then that never truly leaves.

(Because she _cares_.)

And now that changes everything.

* * *

Sansa takes her breakfast in the parlor with her father. Robb and Bran have already left for the day, but their father has lingered at the table with her. She feels his glances every now and then. Eventually, she places her fork down delicately and turns to him. "What is it, Father?" she asks.

Ned blinks at her, hand stilling with his bread halfway to his mouth.

"There's something you want to say. Or ask." She sighs, fingering the edge of her sleeve nervously. "It's okay, whatever it is. Speak comfortably, please." She offers a reassuring smile, though she doesn't feel it herself.

Ned cocks a brow at her, a light chuckle leaving his lips.

It's nice to hear her father laugh, even light as it is. He's hardly done it at all since they arrived at King's Landing.

"How generous of you, my lady," he teases, smile genuine as it wrinkles his weathered cheeks in its upturn.

Sansa smiles back.

He takes a moment, smile wilting slightly as he looks back to his plate, dropping his bread back onto it. "Has Prince Jon…" He heaves another sigh, this one longer, more weary. He flicks his grey eyes back up to her. "Has Prince Jon been courteous with you?"

Sansa hesitates, worrying the end of her sleeve a little more forcefully. She takes a breath. "He's been…"

Ned stares at her intently, eyes searching, a frown already marring his features.

Sansa feels herself coiling tight beneath the look. "We are new to each other, Father. And from families with a bloody history. You can't have expected this to be a seamless marriage."

His frown deepens, shoulders pulling back as he straightens in his chair. "Sansa, has he mistreated you?" His voice is low, his Northern brogue instantly deeper.

She shakes her head, hand going out to clasp over his atop the table. "No, Father."

It's been several days since their encounter in the corridor, when she'd offered an apology and he'd thrown up instant defenses. Several days since she's felt his heated gaze, his calloused hands at her arms, his breath against her cheeks. Several days since he'd stared after her with a face of longing – childlike in its dejection – a glimpse into a past he'd likely not meant to show her.

But she'd seen it regardless.

She'd seen the way he reached for her, almost on instinct, mouth parting, brows crinkled, throat bobbing with constricted emotion.

_What do you want from me?_

She doesn't think he's used to giving. Targaryens are a family that takes, after all.

It shouldn't be this hard to erase that look from her mind. It shouldn't be this hard to forget him.

He does not avoid her in the halls, addresses her appropriately at meals, even accompanies her through the gardens sometimes. But he's a silent specter of what she's known of him. No more heat. No more demanding gazes. No more dragging her to him, hands sure and insistent at her waist. Indeed, he hardly touches her at all now. Never offers his arm in their walks through the gardens. Manages never to graze her hand when he passes a plate across the dinner table. Barely even meets her eyes in the little instances when they converse.

She spends more time with Margaery Tyrell than her own intended.

Sansa sighs, pushing the memories down. But he stays there, always, just under her skin. Pricking at her awareness like a splinter.

There is no digging him out.

"We've disagreed," she tells her father, "And we've tested boundaries. We've not had a smooth learning of each other, but no, he has not mistreated me."

Ned gives her a skeptical look.

She squeezes his hand, then releases it, drawing her hands back into her lap. "I'm okay, Father," she tells him, nodding.

Ned shakes his head, face still somber, wiping a hand down his mouth. "Your mother and I had hoped that because he was Lyanna's boy…" He trails off, hand curling into a loose fist atop the table. "I don't know. Maybe we hoped he'd be different than them somehow."

_Them_.

The Targaryens.

Sansa's chest tightens, her eyes narrowing.

Leave a lone wolf to a pit of dragons and what do you expect to happen?

Something stirs in her – an aggrieved sort of simmering. "And what example had he to live by?" she asks.

Ned blinks at her.

She feels the stirring in her gut, hot and inexplicable. It takes to her efforts of smothering it about as well as her memories of Jon.

Like a splinter, wedging itself into her periphery.

"Sansa."

It flares from her – instant and uncontrollable. "You said the pack must stay together, that we must protect each other. But you left him. He needed you, and you left him." The words are searing along her tongue, but she can't seem to swallow them back. Can't seem to _want_ to.

Ned's fist tightens over the table, his eyes impossibly grey and grievous.

She feels the wetness pricking at her eyes, a salted heat that stings as well as it relieves. "He should have been ours, as well, Father. _Our_ pack. Ours. And now he's to be mine. And I hardly know him." Her voice cracks and she licks her lips in her apprehension, the words coming stilted and heavy. "How can we expect him to be anything more than what we abandoned him to?"

Ned hangs his head, eyes boring into the tabletop. His shoulders bunch, a ragged breath leaving him when he finally looks back up. He shakes his head, mouth a thin line when he tells her, "You shame me, child." His voice is hoarse, a whisper let to air.

"No, Father, please, I – "

Ned shushes her softly, turning in his chair so that he is facing her fully, reaching over to grasp at her hands clutched in her lap. "You've done nothing wrong, Sansa. _Said_ nothing wrong." He heaves a labored sigh, and it seems to take all of him.

Sansa turns her hands over until she's clutching at his weathered palm herself, winding her fingers through his. She feels the tender swipe of his thumb along her knuckles and blinks back the wetness.

Ned stares at their joined hands, mouth opening, and then closing.

Her father's never been one for words, least of all to her. Theirs is a quiet love – unperturbed and without issue. There are times she wonders if he ever truly sees her, or if it's just the image of a lady he fashions her as – distant and poised. A pretty picture. The kind you set in a room and forget. Never touched beyond a shifting into place.

Sansa swallows back the ache.

No. Her father loves her. Even if he doesn't understand her sometimes. Even if he's never been good at showing it.

Her father loves her.

"You're right, Sansa."

She sucks a tight breath through her lips, eyes unblinking as they watch him. He swipes his thumb along her knuckles again, sure and purposeful, swallowing tightly.

"He has our blood," Ned says, nodding, eyes muted and intent on hers. "Always has."

Sansa finds herself nodding, not trusting her voice.

"We should have done better by him," he says, the words a rough expel of breath. "I – _I_ should have done better by him." He offers a hesitant quirk of his lip, a sad sort of smile, lips trembling.

Sansa cannot imagine losing a sister. Losing _Arya_ – willful and terrible and exasperating as she is. She cannot imagine reconciling that loss with anything – even with an innocent babe, born of that precious sister.

She wonders, suddenly, if her father has ever spoken of it to anyone – that kind of loss, that kind of grief. She hopes he has. She hopes her mother or Uncle Benjen, or seven hells, _Maester Luwin_ even, has sat with him, and listened, and _listened_ , and given his words of anguish a home to curl up in. A haven in the storm, in the barrenness of winter.

She only wishes Jon had had the same. Because it's increasingly apparent that he hasn't. Perhaps not even once.

Just someone to listen.

To give his grief a home.

Sansa manages a faint smile herself, watery and quaking as it is. "Perhaps now's our chance," she says softly.

Ned lets out a shaky breath, drawing his hand from hers, gripping at the arms of his chair now. He nods to her, a proud sort of gleam to his eye, the lines of his face crinkling beneath his hesitant smile. "Perhaps you're right, my girl."

That splinter – it creeps and creeps and creeps, edging deeper. Until it is too far gone to pull out. Until it has been swallowed up entirely – a part of her now.

"The pack survives," Ned says resolutely, mouth a firm line.

_Ours_ , Sansa promises.

(The splay of Jon's hand along her back, the ardent darkness of his gaze, the way his chest had heaved beneath her bunched fists.)

Sansa sucks a breath through her teeth like a brand.

(The way his eyes had flicked to her mouth for the briefest of moments.)

She swallows, throat tight.

_Hers_ , she promises – somewhere darker.

Somewhere treacherous.


	4. The Downfall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Ours, she’d promised. But it’s getting harder and harder to see the Stark behind all that Targaryen. (And maybe this is her own fault. Maybe this is her thinking too well of people again. Maybe this is what all naïve, self-righteous girls get for their wanting hearts.)” - Jon and Sansa. Like the curve of the horizon, when the moon breaks from beneath its bow.

Disclaimer: I own nothing, I make no money.

From Instep to Heel

Chapter Four: The Downfall

" _Ours_ , she'd promised. But it's getting harder and harder to see the Stark behind all that Targaryen. (And maybe this is her own fault. Maybe this is her thinking too well of people again. Maybe this is what all naïve, self-righteous girls get for their wanting hearts.)" - Jon and Sansa. Like the curve of the horizon, when the moon breaks from beneath its bow.

* * *

"And who will your brother be squiring for?" Aegon asks Sansa from across the table.

She sets her wine glass down, smiling gratefully at his interest. "My father has not yet found a position for him."

"Not yet?" Daenerys asks coolly, cutting into her ham. "Your wedding is in a fortnight. Your family is to return North shortly after, yes?"

Sansa sags with the remembrance. "Yes."

"Then arrangements should be made rather quickly, don't you think?"

Sansa nods stiffly, looking down to her plate. "I'm sure my father is looking into it."

She's grown used to these dinners with her future husband and siblings. Sometimes King Rhaegar joins them. Sometimes her father or brothers. Sometimes she takes her dinners back in the guest wing, with just the Starks and Theon and Margaery. There's much more laughter then. Her smiles come more freely. And she does not miss the way Robb and Margaery glance at each other across the table.

Sansa smiles to herself at the recollection. She cannot blame her brother. Margaery is wicked charming, after all, and even Theon has warmed up to her, grudgingly admitting to Sansa once during their stroll through the gardens that Robb could hardly find better and Sansa had swatted his arm good-naturedly for the low compliment before Theon was laughing at her, surrendering, granting his reluctant admiration for the lady. Sansa had beamed.

She wonders if it's too soon to hope for a sister, rather than a friend, in Margaery.

The thought reminds her suddenly – "Lady Margaery recommended Bran squire for her brother Ser Loras. He is a rather renowned knight, after all. And Margaery's word gives me hope that the Tyrells would be in favor of such an arrangement."

Rhaenys scoffs softly across from her.

Sansa swings her gaze over to the princess, catching the way Jon reaches for his wine glass beside her. "Is there something strange about it, Lady Rhaenys?" She cannot help the soft bite that echoes after the words. She still remembers how the other woman had humbled her at tea several days past, the memory unpleasantly sharp and vibrant.

Sansa clenches her jaw.

_Ice_ , she tells herself, breathing deep.

"That woman will sink her claws into anything once she gets a whiff of power," Rhaenys says.

Sansa's brows furrow. "Lady Margaery?"

Rhaenys takes a bite of her buttered turnips. "The very one."

"I don't see how – "

"Tell me, Lady Sansa, does your brother Robb take kindly to her?" Rhaenys offers a close-lipped smile, chewing carefully.

Sansa bristles at the insinuation.

"Come, Rhaenys," Aegon interrupts, "You're being rude to our guest."

"I'm only giving her fair warning," Rhaenys says, spearing another vegetable with her fork. "Lady Margaery wanted you first, brother, and when she couldn't have that, she went for Jon – "

"Rhaenys," Jon warns lowly, and it's the first Sansa has heard him speak all night.

" – and when _that_ didn't happen, she went for the next best thing: the heir to Winterfell." She takes a vicious bite of her food.

Daenerys reaches for her wine glass, an amused smirk at her lips. "You're simply mad that Mace Tyrell has offered his son Willas for your hand."

"And why shouldn't I be?" she snaps. "Bunch of vultures, the whole lot of them."

"Lady Margaery has been nothing but sweet and considerate towards my family and I, and I don't think it right to besmirch a lady based on assumptions," Sansa gets out breathlessly, hardly believing the words have left her.

Out of the corner of her eye, she notices Jon's fingers twitch over the stem of his wineglass, drawing it toward his perpetual frown.

Her cheeks heat instantly, fingers tightening over the cutlery in her hands.

"And you're absolutely right, my lady," Aegon agrees gently, sending a warm smile her way. He glances to Rhaenys then, a flicker of warning to his violet gaze.

The subtle shift is somewhat jarring, even if his agreement has tempered her bout of sudden vexation.

Rhaenys sends a baleful look toward her brother but doesn't argue further.

Beside her, Jon shifts in his seat, setting his glass back to the table. Sansa feels acutely aware of every minute movement he makes, anxiety from this maddening silence of his rooting her to her seat.

She's tried accompanying him in the library, sharing the quiet with him as they each devour their chosen books in turn, hoping to draw some sort of conversation out of him regarding his reading, and yet he offers little more than acknowledging grunts at her attempts. She's tried sharing stories from home, enlightening him about the North, and Rickon and Arya back at Winterfell, the godswood, the crypts, the hot springs, but he hardly even meets her eyes let alone grants her any seeming interest in her tales. They've been riding, they've walked the gardens, they've shared a meal nearly every evening for the last fortnight she's been in King's Landing, and still, he is no more known to her than the first night he swung her about the dancefloor and slated her honest questions with quiet anger.

She's never been spurned so. It smarts, she finds – when she's brave enough to admit to it.

"Rhaenys is right though, you know," Daenerys says over the rim of her wineglass. "In some respects," she finishes.

Aegon gives a decidedly unprincely eye-roll and throws a smirk Daenerys' way. "Seven, but you do love to disagree with me, don't you, wife?" Even as an urge for caution, there's a fondness to his words that startles Sansa somewhat, the quiet intimacy of it warming her with embarrassment at being present for the exchange.

Daenerys lifts a brow at Aegon, setting her wine glass down. "I'm not disagreeing either way. But you have to admit that the woman certainly isn't letting the opportunity pass her by."

Sansa frowns, eyes drifting down to her plate. She stares resolutely at her half-eaten ham, taking a deep, calming breath. Her eyes prick with a stinging wetness she hates.

She does not want to think that her time with Margaery has been disingenuous. It is too cruel a thing to consider.

Sansa curls her hands tightly along her fork and knife, hovering at the edge of her plate, blinking back the wetness.

Maybe she thinks too well of people. Arya's berated her for it before. Robb's consoled her because of it, as well. It hurts her more than it helps her, she finds.

But she'd rather think too well of people than too ill of them.

Sansa glances up fleetingly at Rhaenys.

(No, if thinking too ill of people likens her to Rhaenys Targaryen's sort, then she doesn't want it. She doesn't want it at all.)

She can't have imagined the hidden quirk of Margaery's lip when Robb had kissed her hand for the first time in greeting, eyes alight on hers as he bent into a courteous bow, and she'd thought Sansa wasn't looking. Or the unhindered laugh she'd let loose, hand clamped suddenly over her mouth, when Bran tried to tell the story of how he caught Theon kissing Jeyne Poole in the kitchen pantry before Theon nearly vaulted over the dinner table to stop him. Or the way her face had gone slack with tender disbelief when she'd taken the hand-sewn silk handkerchief Sansa had offered her just the other day, beaming proudly as Margaery fingered the edges with a fond reverence.

There are many shadows in the Red Keep, but some things Sansa still sees clearly.

She swallows thickly, straightening in her seat, missing the way Jon watches her with muted, grey eyes.

"And is this the norm in the capital? This rank suspicion? Is it not tiring to always assume a second layer of meaning to what people say and do?" she asks. It's a barb, of course, a frank observation, but there is also a genuine need to the question. She clamps her mouth closed at the tail end of the words, feeling suddenly small and naïve and childish. But even still –

Surely it can't be all shadows in such a sunlit place.

Daenerys and Rhaenys offer piqued brows at the question while Aegon graces her with a consolatory smile. Beside her, Jon smothers a rueful chuckle into his wine glass. Sansa nearly glares at him, but reins the instinct in, cutting into her ham instead, perhaps a touch too forcefully.

"You've a kind heart, Lady Sansa," Aegon says, leaning back in his seat as he watches her. "Be careful with. It seems too beautiful a thing to break." His violet gaze is steady, candle-lit and searing.

Sansa swallows thickly at the look, setting her cutlery to her plate. Daenerys takes a large swig of wine across from her, eyes averted. Jon sets his glass down loudly, a gruff exhale leaving him. Sansa nearly startles at the noise.

"Your brother would do well under Ser Loras," he says to her suddenly, voice low and tight, a gravelly quality to the words – the most he's said to her in days.

Sansa blinks at him, only to find him watching Aegon intensely.

Aegon hardly notices, having returned to his plate with a gingerly swipe of his knife into his meat.

Sansa opens her mouth, closes it, finds her voice finally. "Thank you, my lord."

Jon grunts his acknowledgement, dragging his wine glass back to his mouth.

"What about Jaime Lannister?"

Sansa looks up at Daenerys' question. "My lady?"

The Targaryen heiress settles back in her seat, her finished plate abandoned atop the table. "I daresay your brother wouldn't find a better knight to squire for, and a Kingsguard at that. I'm certain Rhaegar would approve the arrangement."

Sansa does not miss the way Jon stiffens beside her, but it's Aegon who responds.

"Yes, that makes perfect sense," he drawls dismissively. "Let the Stark boy squire for the man who killed their father's dear friend and helped end his people's uprising."

Sansa startles at the blatant way Aegon says it, her mouth parting, her gaze fixing to him. Something brews in her chest – something Northern. Something winter-hewn.

Jon leans his weight to one armrest, scowling at his brother. "Robert Baratheon got what he deserved," he snarls. "If only Stannis had shared such a fate." The words are too full of bite to truly be called a lament.

That incessant winter, tugging at her veins – it batters around her chest now.

"And Ned Stark took a knee for it," Daenerys muses, "So the North may live on." She scowls softly at her husband. "I see no reason to dismiss the suggestion. Ser Jaime squired under Ser Arthur Dayne, after all. Any lord would be overcome to have their son squire for such a knight."

Sansa watches as Rhaenys goes stiff with the mention of Arthur Dayne. Jon lets out a near growl into his slowly emptying wine glass. Sansa's skin feels tight, uncomfortable, her eyes blinking furiously, lungs clenching in her chest.

To speak so casually about her people's independence, their failed rebellion – Sansa finds the words tart and smarting along her tongue.

_Robert Baratheon got what he deserved. And Ned Stark took a knee for it_.

Sansa's chest heaves, her cutlery clattering to her plate.

Jon glances at her out of the corner of his eye.

"I'm sorry, but I…" She trails off, eyes fixed to her plate.

Aegon leans toward her, a concerned look on his face. "Lady Sansa?"

Jon takes a long gulp of wine.

Sansa steals a breath through her nose, hands going to her lap. "Robert Baratheon may be a traitor to the crown but he was – " The words stall in her throat, thick with unspoken meaning.

He was her father's brother, in truth, as much as Uncle Benjen ever was. As much as Uncle Brandon, too.

Her hands curl into fists atop her lap.

"You're not about to defend him, are you?" Jon asks quietly beside her, still as the grave, eyes dark, even by candlelight.

Sansa glances up at him, mouth parted.

Daenerys trails a slender finger slowly up and down the stem of her wine glass as it rests atop the table. "Careful, Jon," she says, eyes glinting, "Your soon-to-be wife seems to have wavering allegiances."

The panic is instant, throat closing around spent air. "I'm not – "

"The Baratheons are a gutless sort," Jon sneers. "No honor amongst them."

Rhaenys is uncharacteristically silent, dragging her fork across her plate almost disinterestedly. But Sansa hardly has a mind to notice. She's too overcome with a new, threatening ire. "And thus my father, by association?" she asks on as ladylike a scoff as she can manage, teeth rattling behind her heated exhale.

Jon narrows his eyes at her. "That's not what I said."

"You may as well have," she argues, chest heaving.

Jon rolls his eyes, but he's turning in his seat, facing her now, the brunt of his attention fully trained on her. She shifts to face him in return.

"Lord Stark knelt to save his people, aye, but only when the rebellion was truly lost. That hardly fosters good faith, wouldn't you say?"

"I'd say burning your lordships alive hardly fosters good faith," she quips back instantly, brows furrowed sharply, tongue smarting with her indignation.

Daenerys smothers her amused laugh into the rim of her wine glass. Aegon intones his wife's name warningly, stiff and unblinking. Sansa's eyes prick with a heated wetness, frustrated and helpless. She keeps her gaze fixed to Jon.

He blinks at her, mouth curling into an aggravatingly familiar smirk. "Citing past grievances won't help you now, my lady. This is a new era – a new dawn. Our father is a fair ruler, but you can be sure, he will not tolerate treason."

Sansa smarts at the admonition. "'Past grievances'?" she asks incredulously. "The mad king _murdered_ my grandfather and uncle in open court," she hisses, voice rising. " _Your_ grandfather and uncle," she reminds him, the accusation as much a plead as it is a damnation. She blinks furiously at him, the anger rising easily.

Jon swallows tightly, eyeing her with a searing gaze.

"There is no excuse for what our grandfather did," Aegon says suddenly, voice low and practiced. "No one denies that such an act was atrocious, and certainly un-kingly of him."

Sansa does not even spare the prince a glance, her eyes still fixed to Jon. He stares resolutely back at her. Neither seems able to relent.

"But you're looking for villains now where there are only men," Aegon finishes, and this does draw Sansa's attention finally. She stares at him, mouth a thin line, hands curling tightly together over her lap.

She hears Jon's scoff beside her, catches him in the corner of her eye, dragging his wine glass back to his mouth. She swings her hardened gaze back to him instantly. "And I suppose 'villains' are all you see when you look at Starks and Baratheons, my lord?" she prompts, voice hard, lip curling into a sneer.

Jon does not wilt beneath her gaze. "I stand by what I said," he says lowly.

"Am I to assume honor and brotherhood mean nothing to you?"

"Am I to assume fealty means nothing to _you_?"

Sansa huffs, an incredulous breath drawn through her rattling lungs. "My father is a good, faithful lord."

"No one is denying it. I'm simply warning you, in hopes that it stays such."

She feels her nails digging half-moons into her palms. That splinter is back – but oh, how it digs. A stinging reminder beneath her skin.

She wants to claw it out, now.

A seething cold settles over her. "Then tell me you would have done differently," she gets out in a low voice.

Jon's gaze shifts between her eyes, brows drawn down in a confused furrow.

Sansa licks her lips, breath raking from her. "If it had been your father and brother murdered so, _tell me_ you would have done differently," she challenges.

The silence is deafening – a sundering weight between them.

Sansa catches, just barely, the flicker that passes over Jon's face when the words leave her, before it's shuttered away, a dark look overtaking him. She watches as he leans back from her, arms going slowly to his armrests, never taking his gaze from hers.

It's static between them, frenzied air, a heavy draw in her lungs.

She can feel the hammering of her own heartbeat at her ears and wonders – frantically – if he can hear it, too.

She drags her gaze away eventually, eyes fixed to her hands. It seems terribly unfair, this frustration he brews in her.

Because he is so agonizingly still, even now.

She wants to shake him for it, wants to rattle this silence clean out of him, bring back the disparaging remarks, the heated admonishment. But her pride still smarts. And she won't admit to the hidden, spiteful part of her that revels in being able to reduce him to such silence. So, she sits, and she breathes, and she tries to steady her thunderous heart. She takes his quiet, searing stare as a notion of victory, even when it tastes like chalk on her tongue. Even when the triumph languishes beneath her wounded Northern pride.

Someone clears their throat across the table and Sansa finally glances up, catching Aegon's violet gaze. It's closed off, giving nothing away, his mouth a thin line, one slender, poised hand stilled over his wineglass. "Lady Sansa, I would advise you to abandon the topic." His fingers glide around the rim, slow and measured, and the motion is startlingly lulling to watch. "I do not wish to ruin dinner any further." He offers a light quirk of his lip. The expression lights a strange mix of comfort and forewarning, and Sansa's gut clenches, remembering herself suddenly.

"Of course, my lord. I apologize," she answers, shifting slightly in her seat, decidedly _away_ from Jon, reaching for her own glass and taking a distracting gulp.

Daenerys chuckles ruefully. "All this because of a squire?"

At her side, Jon grunts his displeasure at his aunt's remark.

Daenerys sighs dramatically, ignoring him. "I still say Jaime Lannister."

"Gods, Daenerys," Rhaenys snaps, "You have absolutely no tact, do you?" Sansa finds she is as eager for the princess' silence as Rhaenys seems to be, though she finds the comment rather hypocritical herself.

But Daenerys only gives the other woman a piqued brow in response. "Training under Ser Arthur Dayne is no common feat, after all. You of all people know the value of that," she intones meaningfully.

Rhaenys glares at her, jaw quivering.

Jon throws his napkin to the table.

"I beg pardon, but I think perhaps…perhaps it's time I excused myself," Sansa says suddenly, drawing her napkin from her lap as well and setting it primly atop the table.

Aegon notes her half-eaten plate with a raised brow. "You've barely finished, my lady." The words are not unkind.

Sansa's gut churns regardless. "I've no appetite tonight, it seems," she says in apology, looking to him with almost pleading eyes.

Almost, but not quite.

(She will not plead for such a low thing – to be excused from the table like a child.)

"Of course," Aegon says, nodding to her.

She stands swiftly, hands smoothing her skirts over as she offers her farewells, before she retreats from the room as quickly as she can.

She's partly through the door when she hears the scrape of a chair behind her, and Rhaenys' startled "Jon!" before her heart slams up into her ribcage and she's stalking as fast as she can through the corridor without breaking into a dead run, her hands bunched in her skirts, her chest heaving, eyes stinging with humiliation and ire.

"Lady Sansa."

She comes to a halt in the torchlit corridor, her back to Jon. "Please," she says, hating the way the word falters, a quake of air past her lips.

He says nothing behind her at her heavy exhale, says nothing as her hands fist in her skirts. The line of her shoulders is a trembling, vulnerable thing. She swallows, tongue heavy, words rasping as they leave her. "Please, just…let me go, my lord."

Still, he says nothing. And Sansa hasn't the patience to turn to him, to humor whatever argument or censure he wishes to sling at her.

_Ours_ , she'd promised. But it's getting harder and harder to see the Stark behind all that Targaryen.

(And maybe this is her own fault. Maybe this is her thinking too well of people again.

Maybe this is what all naïve, self-righteous girls get for their wanting hearts.)

After many moments, she finds he still has no answer for her but silence. Not even the rustle of his leathers, or the familiar expel of his aggravated breath.

She doesn't wait around for him to change his mind. She stalks from him, never looking back.

She feels the weight of his stare all the way down the corridor, even still.

* * *

"Come on, Stark, you've got better than that, don't you?"

It's the cocky way the words are spoken that catches Jon's ear when he makes it to the end of the opening hallway, turning past a column where the courtyard opens out.

"Any better and you'll be wiping that mouth off the ground," Robb taunts back, barking a laugh. A clattering, steely sound follows. Jon rounds the bend into the training yard, looking out in time to see Theon parrying a blow from Robb.

Jon stops to watch the spar. Robb is clearly more disciplined in his training, but Theon is agile, swift. They're a fair match for a time, but Jon can tell Robb's endurance will win out. There's no wasted energy, no move without purpose. Robb conserves himself, doesn't move without purpose, no mind for theatrics or flashy tricks. There's a single-minded determination to his motions, his face pensive even in the midst of the fight. He is thinking three moves ahead already, Jon can tell.

A smirk streaks across the Stark's face.

It is not the pleasure of the spar itself, but the inevitable victory.

Jon watches as Robb delivers the final blow, bashing Theon into the ground, his back hitting the dirt, Robb's sparring sword stopped just at Theon's throat, a gleam in his eye when the Greyjoy curses his loss.

Robb steps back, smirk spreading into a full-on grin, reaching a hand out to help Theon up.

Jon blinks at the motion, at the way Theon grunts in reluctance as he takes his hand, even as his own grin is tugging surreptitiously at his lips. He thinks of his own spars with Aegon, the heated fervency of them, the deadlocked resolve. There are never laughs, never out-stretched hands in the wake of victory.

_You pick your own self up out of the dirt_ , Jon reminds himself.

"You were saying?" Robb taunts him.

"Oh shut it, Stark. No one likes a boastful ass."

Jon's brows dart into his hairline with his surprise. The heir to Winterfell lets a _Greyjoy_ speak to him thus?

Robb's laugh fills the courtyard and Theon punches at his shoulder half-heartedly. Robb only laughs louder.

"I'd heed your own words if I were you, Theon," someone says from across the yard, a feminine giggle lighting the end of the words, and Jon swings curious eyes to the other side of the courtyard, catching along Lady Sansa watching from beneath the veranda. She stands arm in arm with Margaery, the Tyrell lady smothering a laugh with her palm. Sansa arches a challenging brow to Theon, her lips quirked up into a fond smirk. The expression is unguarded, affectionate even in its taunting. Jon's jaw clenches at the look, chest tightening without warning.

He's never seen such an expression on her face before – certainly never directed at him.

He thinks back to the other night when they'd argued about Northern fealty and Baratheon treason. The remembrance brings a sourness to his tongue. If only she knew, if only she –

But she doesn't know. And how could he expect her to?

Seven years ago, when Stannis had –

Jon stops that train of thought, burying the memory instantly, hands clenching into fists at his side.

"You wound me, Lady Sansa," Theon says dramatically, drawing Jon's attention back with a hand braced at his chest in mock offense. "You know I mean everything I say."

"And that's the problem," she says back, laughing.

Theon offers her a roguish grin. Jon curls his lip at the sight. "You think I can't beat your brother? Have you no faith in me?"

"A very little," she says teasingly. Margaery shakes her head beside her, clearly entertained by the banter.

Theon hoists his sparring sword to rest along his shoulder, chest puffing out at the challenge, but when he turns to face Robb once more, he catches sight of Jon at the edge of the courtyard, their eyes meeting on a halted breath. His grin falls instantly, replaced by a tight-lipped frown, very near a sneer if Jon thinks too long about it. But the Greyjoy seems to have just enough deference not to keep the expression long, straightening, a short bow of his head accompanying his greeting. "My lord," he says stiffly, all hint of his earlier amusement bled out from his voice.

Robb turns at the address, finding Jon easily, bowing himself with a similar greeting. When Jon finally drags his eyes back to Sansa, she purses her lips, curtseying politely, eyes falling to the floor. Margaery settles a hand along her arm at her side.

Her clear disinterest rankles him, nostrils flaring beneath his heavy breath. "Do continue," he says to the men, turning back to them. "Don't stop on my account."

Robb seems about to say something, before he thinks better of it, tapping his sparring sword in the dirt in apparent contemplation. It's Theon that speaks then.

"Join us, my lord."

Sansa's head snaps up at the words.

Jon raises a brow at the offer. Robb glances to Theon, a cautionary look to his features. But Theon ignores Robb, chin hitching high, lips settling into a self-satisfied smirk. "That is, if your lordship would deem to cross swords with a Stark."

"You're not a Stark," he says without bite, only bluntness, but he sees the way the words strike him regardless.

Theon's face goes dark, lips twitching, the hand at his sword tightening over the hilt.

It puzzles him, how Theon Greyjoy could take such offense. Is it such a grand thing, to be a Stark? Does it mean so much?

His chest constricts at the thought. It used to mean much. He can hardly recall the feeling now, though. But even still…

A _Greyjoy_.

Jon finds himself sneering at the other man.

"I'm sure Robb could accommodate that," Margaery calls out from her place beside Sansa. The other woman turns to her, eyes wide, clutching at her arm.

She only shrugs a shoulder, an impish grin to her features. "Though I daresay it should be rather hard for our dear Lady Sansa to choose who to pledge her favor to," she says slyly, grin turning devilish.

" _Margaery_ ," Sansa hisses beneath her breath.

Jon is already stalking forward, unlacing his leather jerkin, possessed of something he hasn't a name for. Sansa swings wide eyes back at him, catching the way he's staring at her all the while, shrugging out of his jerkin to just his cotton tunic beneath. She swallows thickly, mouth parting as her breath hitches. He doesn't admit to the rush that overtakes him then.

So she isn't so unaffected by him, is she?

"I think a spar is an excellent idea, Lady Margaery," Jon says. Margaery excitedly pats at Sansa's arm linked through hers with the affirmation. "Assuming Lord Stark here is up to it." He glances to the man finally, buttoning up his sleeves over his forearms and reaching for a sparring sword along the rack of blades beside them. Theon moves out of the way grudgingly when Jon circles round to the center of the yard with the Stark heir.

Robb nods, an amused smile tugging at his lips. "It would be an honor, my lord."

"Don't take it too hard when he knocks you flat on your ass, Targaryen," Theon mutters off to the side.

Jon flashes him a condescending grin. "You and I are not the same, Greyjoy."

Robb can't seem to help the bark of laughter that breaks from his mouth at the words, though he smothers it quickly, offering an apologetic look to Theon as he stews angrily at the dismissal.

They get into a ready position quickly. Robb rolls his shoulders, eager and focused. "I do hope you will be entertained, Lady Margaery," he calls out teasingly, "even if I should lose."

She chuckles prettily, head cocked as she watches the men slowly start to circle. "Then I will cheer for you, my lord."

A singled raised brow, a saucy smirk gracing his lips. "Will you now?"

"It only seems fair," she muses, glancing at Sansa beside her. "I suppose it would be improper for your sister to grant her brother favor above her betrothed, so I shall have to do, my lord."

Sansa gives a sidelong glance to Margaery, a barely discernible huff passing her lips. Margaery's smile broadens at the tease.

"I think I can live with that, my lady," Robb says, fingers flexing over the hilt of his sword.

The comfortable, playful teasing stirs something in Jon. It's a strange sort of yearning, a coil in his gut. He glances to Sansa over his shoulder. Her smile wilts instantly.

It grips at him suddenly – a thunderous need.

That coy smirk she had graced Theon with. That flutter of a laugh. That easy, endearing crinkle at her eyes, shoulders shaking lightly in her mirth, red tendrils of hair brushed back with fine-boned fingers.

(A need he doesn't recognize – not fully, not yet.)

She stares back at him, face a blank visage, a sheen of ice overtaking her.

She has no such smiles for him, especially not since he'd berated her so condescendingly at dinner the other night. No more walks in the garden or accompanying him in the library. He'd grown used to her presence, even when he'd kept a purposeful distance. He's been too forceful with her, too familiar with his touch. She's to be his wife, yes, and touch is inevitable, touch is…

Jon swallows, his skin tingling with the anticipation he won't admit to.

Touch is the least of what will occur between them come the wedding night, but even still, until then, he will not take such liberties with her. She's clearly not amenable to such intimacy, not yet at least, and Jon is loathe to think she considers him a brute.

But has he given her any reason to think otherwise?

And why should it matter in the first place?

Jon snarls, looking back at Robb. His opponent seems to recognize the shift, the signal, because his face hardens, all mirth leaving him, and then the game begins.

Jon is the first to strike, and Robb parries his swing easily, foot bracing back in the dirt. He pushes off, swinging low. Jon dances out of the way, circling round, eyes trained on Robb. They meet again, a stinging clash of their mock blades, and Jon shifts left, knocking Robb off balance with an elbow. Robb stumbles back, righting himself immediately, just in time to parry another swing from Jon, this one almost vicious in its intensity, and his arms buckle slightly, locking at the elbow. He grunts beneath the force of it. Jon hears the sharp intake of Sansa's breath, the hushed murmur of her brother's name issuing forth in concern.

The sound coils something hot and unrelenting in his gut. He shoves off of Robb, panting, circling round again.

Robb circles similarly, a weary smile gaining on his face. "Not a leisurely spar then?" he chuckles, already winded.

Jon scoffs, but it isn't a scornful sound. A dark mirth fills him. He thinks he might have liked this Robb Stark, had he known him before.

(Before – when Jon had once yearned for his mother's family like a stupid, lost little boy. Before – when he'd _been_ a stupid, lost little boy.)

"You don't fight for leisure, either," Jon muses, breath raking from him. "You fight to win."

Robb shakes his head, still chuckling. "Aye, but at least I'm not so dour about it."

Jon raises a brow, smirk tugging at his lips, unbidden. Another clash of their blades, a parry, a missed swing, a shove to the shoulder, grunting, feet shuffling across the yard, a kicked-up cloud of dust when one stumbles back, chests heaving, tunics soaked through with sweat. A clang, metal ringing sharp in the courtyard. Again, and again, and again. Neither knows how to relent.

Yes, he'd have liked this Robb Stark. If he thinks too long about it, he likes him even now. But Jon knows well enough to be wary of wolves.

Sansa's image floods his mind, for she is a wolf, too, even in all her silk dresses and pretty courtesies. There is a flash of teeth behind that primly, pursed mouth, Jon knows. A bite as cool and cut as winter.

And he wonders suddenly – _wildly_ – what that bite might taste like, whether that cool ice of hers would persist against the hot press of his tongue, what sounds she might make when he's spreading her milk-white thighs apart to sink inside her.

Would she howl for him, as wolves are wont to do?

Jon's chest heaves, a maddening heat suffusing him, and he blinks the image back furiously, barely managing to avoid Robb's incoming swing. The edge of his blade swipes close to his chin, and Jon stumbles back at the near miss, ears catching the sudden intake of breath from the watching ladies, as well as Theon's whoop of satisfaction. Jon steadies himself, wiping a hand across his sweat-slicked brow, dark curls plastered to his skin. He growls lowly, shifting his sword into an overhold, advancing on Robb. He is waning, he knows, but he will not lose. Not here, with her watching. Something about the thought lights a flare of resolve in him.

Jon feints right, parrying Robb's blow and swinging round, blade coming at his side, and Robb barely manages to swing his sword back in time, but the force of Jon's strike, caught at an awkward angle, trips him up, and he's stumbling back, hand going out instinctively to brace his fall before righting himself just in time.

Except, not just in time.

Jon swings hard, sweeping Robb's legs out from under him, and Robb lands back along the dirt with a rough grunt, breath winded from him, looking up to find the tip of Jon's sword at his throat, a mirror to his earlier victory against Theon.

They stay staring at each other, breathing heavily, Jon's eyes dark and focused, his hand never lowering.

"Well," Margaery says with a smack of her lips, "That was a riveting win, wouldn't you say, Lady Sansa?"

Jon blinks away the heady battle haze, arm lowering, stepping back a pace. He glances to her, still panting, tunic stuck to his chest with his sweat.

Sansa lifts her chin. "Valiantly done, my lord," she says tightly, a hint of a scowl gracing her features, "For a man with royal training against an opponent already flagging from previous spars."

"Sansa," Robb admonishes from his place on the ground, looking up at her aghast.

Theon smothers his laugh in his fist, but not enough for Jon to miss it.

Margaery raises both brows at her friend in surprise, her amused smirk still steadily put.

Jon lets out a rueful laugh, voice rough. "It seems not much impresses you, Lady Sansa."

She doesn't answer, keeping her chin high. Theon steps toward them, picking Robb's fallen sword up off the ground. "I think it's one of her many virtues, actually," he says smugly.

Jon throws a disdainful look his way. "I'm not particularly interested in what you think about my betrothed," he warns.

Theon opens his mouth but never gets the chance to retort.

"Alright, Targaryen, you've had your fun. Now, are you going to help me up or not?"

Jon looks down at Robb leaning back in the dirt with an expectant look and a hand held out. He catches the laugh that threatens to escape at the image. His throat tightens, an unfamiliar ache settling in his stomach. He reaches out and grabs his hand, hauling the man up. Robbs dusts himself off, groaning softly when he stills with a hand to his side.

"Are you wounded, my lord?" Margaery asks, voice lilting gently, though the subtle thrum of concern is apparent even to Jon.

Robb scoffs, straightening. "Aye, at my lady's complete lack of appreciation for my battle prowess, even considering such a brutal defeat." He flashes a grin at Jon.

The expression is jarring in its ease. An honest grin, goading and friendly. Jon's frown deepens, that soft, unexplainable yearning battering around his chest.

These damn Starks.

"I was breathless for the whole affair, I assure you," Margaery promises, a charming smile accompanying the words.

Robb glances back to her, brow raised. "Is that so?" His voice is breathy, labored.

Sansa rolls her eyes. "Oh, go take a bath, Robb, you're utterly filthy."

Robb looks down at his muddied tunic and then narrows his eyes at Theon's guffaw.

"You too, Theon Greyjoy. You're worse than Robb."

Theon's laugh cuts off abruptly, glancing back at Sansa with a petulant frown.

Jon stares at her at the edge of the courtyard, eyes boring into hers. He doesn't miss the way her gaze rakes quickly over his form, and he wonders if she will give him the same kind of fond tease, if she will remark on the way his tunic is fitted to his chest with sweat, or the way his curls are disheveled and damp from exertion. But she only purses her lips after her brief appraisal, turning fully to Margaery beside her. "Shall we go for a walk?"

Margaery links her arm more surely through Sansa's, turning them already. "Yes, let's," she agrees.

With a duo of curtsies, Sansa and Margaery leave the courtyard, skirts swaying in their wake. Jon watches her go for long moments. When he looks back, he finds Theon staring at him, a deep furrow to his brow, not even bothering to hide his scowl.

Jon cocks his head at him, inviting whatever scathing comment is languishing on his tongue. But Theon only shakes his head, hefting both his and Robb's swords over his shoulder, turning to the Northern heir. "I should go find Bran. Reckon he's dodging his lessons with Ser Rodrik."

Robb nods, clapping him on the shoulder in farewell, and Theon leaves without a backwards glance.

"You know," Robb says, once they're left alone in the training yard, "You don't seem to be making much headway with my sister."

Jon arches a brow at him, unsure whether to laugh or groan or sneer at the jab. A disbelieving scoff leaves him. That curl in his gut, it doesn't seem to leave these days. Certainly not when he's surrounded by maddening Starks.

"She can be…" He stops, considers, rolling the words along his tongue, "Difficult."

Robb snorts a laugh. "And you haven't even met Arya, yet," he mutters, mostly to himself.

Jon gives him a questioning look.

He sobers up easily, gaze going to the space Sansa had occupied. "The thing is," he says, tone disconcerting and inexplicably low, "Sansa generally gives people the benefit of the doubt. Looks for the good in them. And she's _never_ discourteous." He looks to Jon sharply then, eyes probing. "Which makes me wonder what the hell it is you've done to make her so."

Jon sucks a breath through his teeth, gaze never relenting on Robb.

Just a common brute, he imagines her thinking, remembering the heat of her glare when he'd dragged her into his arms.

(And why should it matter? The thought pesters at the edge of his mind, insistent.)

"I've not harmed her, if that's what you're implying," he near growls.

Robb considers him a moment, cocking his head at him. "No," he muses softly. "No, she wouldn't allow that."

_You will unhand me, my lord_.

It's not a line he means to toe again.

"And I don't believe you would," Robb says finally, eyeing him still.

It shouldn't make him feel like this – grateful and relieved and _seen_. Least of all, by a Stark. And yet here he is, greedily taking in his words, that recognition.

A tendril of copper hair just out of reach, a glance of frost-blue eyes, throat pale and slender and gulping beneath his calloused touch.

The searing impression of her earnestness, frail and genuine.

No, he would not hurt her.

The realization is startling in its sincerity.

"Forgive me, my lord, for my bluntness," Robb begins, face grave, "But Sansa is a tender sort, too tender for her own good sometimes, and whatever it is that's between you two, whatever it is that's…hardened her, I do not care for it."

Jon blinks at Robb's sudden fervency, mouth parting, but no words coming forth.

"As a brother yourself, I think you can understand that," Robb says.

The bile is ripe at the back of his throat, and Jon has to swallow back that slice of shame.

(Not how one is supposed to love.)

His head feels too foggy, his chest too tight. The words sink, weighted, along his tongue, until his throat is rife with them. "I've no intention of hurting your sister."

No intention, it's true, but he thinks he might have already, all the same. He grinds his jaw, hand curling over the hilt of the sword still in his grip. "She's to be my wife, after all. And I take care of my own."

_I don't want anything from you_.

He pushes the words from his mind, the remembrance carving a place between his ribs to anchor there.

Because what could he possibly mean to her outside of duty?

"Then take care of her," Robb says, the hint of a demand coloring his words, "Properly."

Jon gives an incredulous chuckle, rueful and unexpected, hand tightening over the hilt of his sword. "From one brother to another?"

"Aye."

"She's not been an easy sort to live with, has she?"

Robb barks a laugh. "Aye, I'll give you that."

Jon flashes a knowing smile at Robb, the ease of it unfamiliar and jarring. It's not an unwelcome feeling though, and perhaps this is where it begins.

The blur. The downfall.

Robb's smile wavers somewhat, a hesitancy marring his charm. He takes a breath, his sudden frown thoughtful, his eyes a soft-hued blue. "Do right by her, my lord. I promise, she will always do right by you."

It's not said as a demand or a warning or a compromise. It's said like a promise, knowing and comforting. Like an embrace.

Like a brother.

_She'll always do right by you_.

Somehow, he believes it.

Jon glances to the spot Sansa had previously occupied, his recollection of her playing like shadow on his mind.

_"Valiantly done, my lord."_ A paltry concession.

And why should it matter? That thought – that plaguing, insistent thought. He thinks he understands now, loathe as he is to admit it.

It matters because suddenly, inexplicably, Jon finds he cares what she thinks of him.

It matters because her opinion of him _means something_ now.

Jon swears beneath his breath.

Fucking Starks.

He's going to regret this, he knows. He's going to regret every bit of this.


	5. More

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You have to be careful, Sansa.”   
> “For your sake?” she spits, unable to quell the spite, the frustration. Tainted by association, isn’t it?   
> “Damn it, girl, for yours,” he growls at her mouth, stilling her.   
> Sansa blinks up at him, chest heaving, hands still clutched in the material at his chest. - Jon and Sansa. Like the curve of the horizon, when the moon breaks from beneath its bow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this update took a little longer than the last, but yo, it's been a hectic two weeks. I ain't even gonna get into it. But hopefully I made up for it by writing a bit of a longer chapter this go around. ;)
> 
> WARNINGS: Mention of past rape in this chapter.

Disclaimer: I own nothing, I make no money.

From Instep to Heel

Chapter Five: More

" _You have to be_ careful _, Sansa." "For_ your _sake?" she spits, unable to quell the spite, the frustration. Tainted by association, isn't it? "Damn it, girl, for_ yours _," he growls at her mouth, stilling her. Sansa blinks up at him, chest heaving, hands still clutched in the material at his chest_. - Jon and Sansa. Like the curve of the horizon, when the moon breaks from beneath its bow.

* * *

When the knock sounds at his door, and Jon beckons the visitor into his solar, Ned Stark is the last person he expects to see.

"Lord Stark," he greets, brows raised, though his voice is still schooled into ease.

Ned gives a perfunctory nod, face perpetually solemn. "My lord."

Jon stares up at him a moment, before standing from his chair, setting his parchment aside and quill back in its inkwell, motioning for Ned to take a seat beside him. Ned offers a quick, half-formed smile in thanks, hands moving from their hold at his back to settle himself into the cushioned chair.

Jon takes his seat once more as well.

"I'll not waste your time, my lord," Ned says gruffly. "I've come to ask something of you – concerning my daughter."

In a strange, intangible sort of way, Jon finds this scene familiar. Except it's his father sitting across from him, revealing the betrothal. It's his father, setting Sansa in his path. It's his father – commanding, and not asking.

Jon nods, mouth a firm line. "Of course, my lord."

Ned takes a moment, drawing his breath in slow and measured, releasing it evenly. "I ask that you dispense with the bedding ceremony."

Jon blinks at him, considering, a single brow cocking upward in silent question.

Ned scowls, the expression dark on his weathered face. "I've never liked the tradition myself. Forbade it for my own wedding, and my wife, well, she feels very much the same concerning Sansa. We'd rather she didn't endure it."

Jon nods, watching the older man quietly, leaning back in his chair to appraise him. "And what of what Lady Sansa wants?"

Ned's frown deepens. "Apologies, my lord, but you're far less observant than I'd taken you for if you think a bedding ceremony is considered one of my daughter's even remotest wishes."

Jon catches the laugh along his tongue at Lord Stark's brusque tone, the blatant transparency of his remark refreshing beyond measure.

Like father, like daughter, Jon thinks. She has the Tully look, for certain, but also, apparently, the tongue of a Stark – winter-sharp and unrepentant.

_"Then take care of her – properly."_

Are they all this unabashedly forward?

Jon shifts in his seat, elbow resting on the armrest, hand gliding over his beard. "No, I hardly took Lady Sansa as the sort," he answers, lips pursed in thought. "I only meant, why does she not ask this of me herself?"

Ned seems to contemplate his answer a moment, arms stiff at his sides along the armrests of his chair. "She is…too dutiful, at times." It's said almost mournfully.

Jon wonders what it means to raise a daughter like a promise, to commit your flesh and blood to another, to grow them soft and pliant and knowing you can never let their roots take.

He wonders at what point it becomes regret.

"Sansa knows what this marriage means to our family," Ned continues, voice rough and thoughtful, "What it means to _both_ our families."

'Both our families'. As though Jon is not _his_. As though he is other.

Jon grinds his jaw, teeth aching in their clench.

It's just another reminder, after all.

Ned seems to notice the slip a moment too late, mouth opening, considering, and then slowly closing shut.

Jon knows better than to foster false hope.

(Knows better than to _call_ it hope.)

Jon clears his throat, hand falling from his beard. "You needn't worry, my lord. I'd no intention of allowing the bedding ceremony in the first place."

Ned narrows his eyes at him, but it's not a suspicious look, simply a curious one. "Why? Not that I'm ungrateful for the consideration."

"I've a distaste for the tradition myself," he says, and it's not a lie.

But it isn't the whole truth either.

The whole truth is that he's never been very good at sharing. And he's brave enough to admit now that Sansa Stark is not something he wants to share.

She's to be his – perhaps the first thing in this world that could rightly be called such.

_His_.

Jon curls his hands along his armrests.

No, he will not be sharing Sansa Stark – with _anyone_.

Ned nods at his answer, looking to the desk at their sides. "I know she will appreciate the gesture. It is a good start to the marriage."

"Gods willing, it will be a better start than our betrothal had."

Ned chuckles at that, glancing back at him, and the sound is warm and deep and stirring.

Jon watches, fascinated, as the lines at Ned's mouth curl out into affection, the weight of his concern lifting with the humor. Jon has to look away before long, swallowing tightly.

Rhaegar hasn't bothered to ask Jon about his preferences concerning the marriage, and he doesn't expect him to. This is a duty, after all – to his family, his father, his kingdom. There is nothing 'preferred' about it.

And yet, even still, he'd have liked to be asked what wine he'd want served, how he'd like his cloak sown, which minstrels he'd want playing at their reception feast. Any of these tiny details, really. To know that it was _his_ wedding, in some small measure, that they were celebrating.

_His_ choice – in whatever insignificant way he can claim it as such.

Jon glances back to Ned.

Lord Stark loves his daughter dearly, Jon knows, to come to him with such a request. Something of admiration blooms faint in his chest at the thought.

"You've been married a fair amount of years, my lord," Jon says in observation.

Ned leans his weight to one side, a brow arched in response.

"Can I expect the same with your daughter, do you think?"

"Well, that depends entirely on you," Ned answers, amusement lighting his features.

It's an unfamiliar expression on the grave man's face, but Jon must admit to the charm it adds. "What do you mean?"

Ned settles back in his chair. "You have to be in this marriage _with_ her, and not against her."

Jon scowls, brows drawn down. "You say it like I'm actively trying to sabotage this marriage," he contends.

He only raises a brow in response.

Jon resists the urge to roll his eyes. "You could hardly expect a Stark and Targaryen to get on from the beginning," he says plainly.

Ned purses his lips, the amusement slipping from his face. "You're more than a Targaryen," he says lowly, almost furtively.

Like a long-kept secret let to air.

But Jon's never thought to be _more_.

Bastards, even royal ones, know where the lines are drawn – perhaps better than anyone. They know what it means to long for _more_.

And what it means to bleed for it.

Ned cocks his head at Jon, a curious expression crossing his face.

"What?" he asks tentatively.

Ned shakes his head, a sad smile tugging at his lips. "Nothing," he says, "Nothing, I'm just…just lost in my ghosts is all." His voice cracks at the end, swallowed back by a bitten off grunt.

Jon realizes belatedly that Ned's been watching him, appraising him in a fashion, and when the older man's mouth goes slack, and his brows knit together, and his eyes sheen with a faint wetness – Jon nearly bolts from the room with the sudden, unnerving realization.

His breath rakes through him painfully. "Do not tell me I look like her," he says warningly, voice tight.

It needs no mentioning who 'her' is supposed to mean.

The recognition in Ned's eyes tells him he knows, regardless.

_Do not tell me I look like your dead sister_ , Jon thinks harshly, throat bobbing with strung emotion. He doesn't know where this ache in his chest has come from. Cannot find the source. Doesn't know how to clip it.

_Do not tell me I look like my mother_.

If he could smother this feeling, he would. If he could ring it out like a water-ladden cloth, he would. If he could cut it free like a fish struggling at the end of a hook, he _would_.

But he cannot.

"I'm not one of your ghosts," he says quietly, far less firm than he intends. "So, don't tell me I look like her." The words are strung through with a thread that stiches its sounds together like a plea in warning's guise.

A falsity.

A costume.

"I wouldn't," Ned says, voice rough. He blinks back the wetness, as though it never was, face solemn once more. Familiar. "Aside from it being only marginally true," he attempts to jest, a sad sort of chuckle lighting along his throat, smoothing out into a contemplative hum, "I don't…I don't think the remark would be particularly appreciated."

"It wouldn't be," Jon says in answer, throat tight. He clears it again, silently curses the falter in his words.

"No, I imagine not," Ned muses quietly, something like regret marring his features.

Perhaps they are _each other's_ ghosts.

Perhaps theirs is a reflection neither has the heart to look upon.

They stay staring at each other for only moments longer, before Ned is pushing from his seat, offering a quick but respectful bow. "Then, let me excuse myself, my lord." He moves to stalk away, back to the door, away and away and out of there. Unreachable. Another smokescreen settling back into place.

(And Jon is just so tired of falsities – of costumes.)

He turns abruptly in his chair. "Did she – "

The words die instantly, choked back on a sharp inhale of restraint.

Still, the questions blister about his mind, endless, unquenchable.

_Did she understand what she was doing? Did she love my father? Did she regret it? Did she miss you at all, miss Winterfell and home and the North? Did she suffer, in the end?_

Jon swallows back the words –

Like a water-ladden cloth, twisted out and left to dry –

Like a fish struggling at the end of a hook, gasping.

_Did she want me?_

Jon closes his eyes, nails digging into his armrests, a heavy sigh breaking from him.

Ned stills at the threshold of his solar, shoulders broad and taut, dark hair brushing them, a slight turn to his head as he glances back at Jon, hesitant and hopeful in equal measure.

Jon begins to think he will never know the answer to such questions – never know, even, how to voice them.

But perhaps that's the rub, isn't it?

How do you ask for what you've never been allowed to want?

No, Jon thinks, eyes opening on a harsh exhale. Do not tell him he looks like his mother. Do not tell him of the North in him. Do not make him miss what he never had.

Ned stays staring at him silently over his shoulder. And then he takes a deep breath, lets it fill his lungs, releases it just as evenly. His eyes are impossibly soft in their harrowing greyness. "If – _when_ – you want it, _when_ you are ready – I will tell you about her. Everything I know. Everything I loved." His voice grows strained, his throat flexing beneath his heavy swallow. "You need only ask."

Jon stares at him for many moments, rooted to his seat, eyes unblinking. And then Ned is nodding his farewell, turning from him.

Jon feels it swell in him – this unexplainable hunger, this yearning for ghosts he doesn't know how to lay to rest. "Thank you," he says, voice catching, "Uncle."

Ned halts with his hand at the door, and Jon can see the white of his knuckles when they clench around the knob. And then he's offering a gruff exhale in acknowledgement, his grunt caught in his throat, before he's turning the door handle and stepping from the room.

Jon cannot find it in himself to regret the words.

* * *

"Don't use your wrists," Jon finds himself saying, watching the young Stark boy swinging at the straw dummy when he comes upon him in the training yard. After several minutes of observation, he finally makes his presence known.

Bran glances back at the remark, stilling in his practice, arm held mid-rise toward the target in his path. "What?" he asks, startled at Jon's sudden appearance at his elbow.

Jon reaches for the young man's arm, hand gripping at his sword wrist, pulling it taut, straightening it. "Don't bend at the wrist. Keep it locked – aligned."

Bran adjusts in his grip. "Like this?"

"Yes. Now, with your shoulders. That's where the strength is." He steps back to let the boy swing.

Bran strikes at the straw dummy, a resounding blow landing at the juncture of neck and shoulder. He beams at the jostle his target takes.

Jon frowns at him, eyeing the young Stark's stance. "You're too old to be making such a mistake. Who have you been training with?"

"Ser Rodrik."

Jon grumbles his disapproval. "Not much of 'ser', is he?"

Bran turns to face him more fully, a scowl at his lips. "He's a great knight, my lord, I'm just…"

Jon raises a brow in question, a silent motion to continue.

His sword dropping in his hold, Bran sighs up at Jon. "Well, I suppose I don't listen like I should sometimes."

Jon has to smile at him then, at the unabashed way the young Stark admits to the failing. There's something endearing about the admission. "Impatience kills as easily as incompetence," he says.

Bran wrinkles his nose in distaste at the remark. "That's what Ser Rodrick says."

Jon chuckles. "Then I suppose you _do_ listen to him sometimes."

Bran grins roguishly up at Jon, sword tipping into the dirt, nearly forgotten. "Only sometimes."

"You know, that's hardly becoming of an aspiring squire."

Bran's grin wilts slightly, his brows bunching. "Well, Robb never squired for anyone and he's the best swordsman in Winterfell."

Jon nods at him, mouth pursed in thought. "Yes, but your brother seems far less the impatient sort than you." He cocks a brow, as though in challenge. "Ignoring your lessons doesn't make you the greatest swordsman in Winterfell, after all."

Bran peers up at him thoughtfully. "He says you can handle a blade well enough yourself."

"Does he now?"

"Which in Robb-speak, means you're the toughest opponent he's ever faced." Bran flashes him a brilliant smile.

Jon laughs at the sight, unable to smother the sound when he brings his fist up to cover his mouth. "Yes, well, that comes from not ignoring my mentors," he says pointedly.

Bran looks up at him with a boyish eagerness. "Who did you train under?"

Jon's soft grin wilts at the edges, a soreness lighting in his chest at the remembrance. "Ser Arthur Dayne," he says, swallowing tightly, "before his passing."

Bran taps the end of his sword in the dirt, watching it mulishly. "I should have liked to meet him."

Jon clears his throat, looks to the side. "He was the best man I've ever known." It comes out like gravel in his throat.

"Ser Jaime squired for him, didn't he?"

Jon looks back to Bran only to find him watching him curiously. And all at once, he knows where the young Stark is leading this. His lip twitches at the thought. "He did," he says, words clipped.

"To squire for Ser Jaime would be the next best thing, then," he says, though it comes out almost like a question – searching for some kind of confirmation. Approval, perhaps.

Jon finds the idea unsettling in its assumed intimacy.

He sighs, rubbing a hand down his mouth, moving around to the weapons rack to peruse the sparring blades. "Is that what you want?"

Bran shrugs, coming up beside him, looking up at him. "I want to learn from the best."

Jon frowns, throwing him a cautious look. "Perhaps you're too young to understand, but there's a certain amount of politics to these sorts of things."

Bran huffs, exasperated, the kind of boyish frustration that comes with being told one is 'too young' one too many times marring his features. "What does politics have to do with me squiring for Jaime Lannister?" he asks hotly.

Jon turns a warning look at the boy ( _man_ , almost, he corrects himself, voice no longer cracking, limbs not so much gangly as they are long, something keen about his eyes that tells Jon he'll have to offer up more than a simple 'Because I said so'). With his eyes still trained on Bran, Jon traces the hilt of a sparring sword absently, before he drops his hand back to his side and turns to face him fully. "You know your history, I'm sure. I could hardly believe Lord Stark not educating his children on that front."

Bran eyes him shrewdly. "What do you mean?"

"Jaime Lannister killed Robert Baratheon in the rebellion."

"Not without almost dying in the process."

"Yes, but that's not – " Jon huffs, licking his lips. "That's not the point."

Growing restless, Bran sets his sword against the rack, crossing his arms over his chest. "Then what _is_ your point, my lord?"

Jon almost rears back at the question, baffled as to how the matter could be so entirely and unarguably lost on the boy. It brews an exhausted frustration in him, his brows pinching together. "You're asking about squiring for a man who killed your father's dear friend – his _sworn brother_." He cannot say it more plainly than that. He regrets that he has to at all, in some respects.

But Bran only looks at him, cocking his head. An acutely pensive look crosses the young man's face, blue eyes blinking furiously at him, lips pursed in consideration. He opens his mouth, speaks with a surety that is strangely foreign to Jon in its self-awareness. "I'm not my father," he says simply, as though he doesn't understand how Jon _doesn't_ understand this, as though it should be universally known – a clear and substantial rebuke to any kind of 'politicking' such a relationship would garner.

And Jon wants to laugh suddenly.

"Why should I bear the repercussions of something I had no hand in?" Bran asks honestly – guileless and unpracticed.

The boy ( _man_ , Jon tells himself again) says it as though that is the end of it, as though Jon is the foolish one here – trying to pin ghosts at their feet he has no intention of acknowledging, draping them with a weight he has no intention of carrying.

And what a wonder – to be so free of the past. To refuse the haunting.

Jon blinks back at Bran, mouth tipping open, tongue heavy.

_"I'm not my father."_

(Can it be so simple?)

Bran uncrosses his arms, looking out across the training yard with a weary sigh. "Why does it have to be more complicated than that?"

Jon sucks a sharp breath in, chest tingling beneath the draw. He wipes a hand over his mouth, shaking his head, and the soft, rueful chuckle that lights his lips is both drowning and dawning.

Because maybe it really is that simple.

Bran blinks up at him curiously, gaze appraising, a glint to his Tully blue eyes that seems all at once older than his years and yet young beyond measure. Infinite. Fathomless.

What could the past be, really, to such clear, keen eyes? What could it be, beyond someone else's burden?

Jon purses his lips, his chuckle smothered instantly behind grinding teeth.

What could it mean, beyond shadows?

Horizons are sunlit things, after all, and Bran's eyes are trained forward.

Jon grabs for Bran's forgotten sword, hefting it toward the boy. Bran catches it clumsily, mouth tipping open in argument, but Jon is grabbing his own sword off the rack, circling over to the center of the training yard. "You want to learn from the best?" he asks harshly, more a demand than anything.

Bran watches him with owlishly wide eyes, holding the blade to his chest, before following dumbly toward him, readying into a low stance.

Jon frowns at him. "Tuck your thumbs in," he says brusquely.

Bran does – although badly.

Jon raps him on the hand with his blunted sword.

" _Ow_ ," Bran whines sharply, whipping back from the sudden strike, shaking his hand out as he takes the sword in his other hand.

Jon steps around him slowly. "Tuck your thumbs in," he says again, near on a bark.

Bran's eyes go dark, focused, brows drawn down in concentration. He grips his sword again, thumbs tucked properly.

Jon lunges again, sword striking the young Stark's knuckles once more. Bran nearly drops the blade this time, a sharp yelp leaving him when he draws back, cradling his reddening sword hand. He scowls up at him, "My lord – "

"Ser Jamie will give you worse," he says, face still sharp and focused. "Now, again."

Bran blinks at him.

Jon whips his sword in a low arc. Bran parries it at the last second. Another swing. A dodge, backstepping, fingers curling tight along the hilt.

"Again," Jon barks.

Bran grinds his teeth, knuckles aching, skin welting red. He glares up at Jon, but he doesn't relinquish his hold of his sparring sword. Smarting and wounded, he stands.

Jon lets the smirk blossom at the edges of his mouth, stepping into his lunge.

Bran is panting, ragged, eyes blazing up at him.

But his thumbs are tucked in – finally.

Jon's smirk widens, knees bending when he lowers into a ready stance. A slight nod – an acknowledgement.

The sun is high over the courtyard, the shadows waning.

"Again," he demands.

Bran meets him without hesitance.

* * *

She's in her solar when Jon finds her. His knock is short and clipped – efficient. She stands in greeting when he sweeps into the room upon her beckoning, the door swinging shut behind him. He comes in like a gale, stops just as abruptly at the edge of her desk.

Her mouth tips open, her surprise halting the words along her tongue until a curious "My lord" finally broaches her lips.

Jon nods in greeting, mouth pursed.

It's a stiff silence that descends upon them then, with Sansa wavering behind her desk, her letter to her mother laying half-penned atop the wood. She remembers her courtesies suddenly. "Please, my lord," she says, motioning for the two cushioned chairs beside her desk, walking around the edge toward them. "Shall I call for some wine? Tea, perhaps?"

"No," he says gruffly, hand wiping down his mouth, "No, you needn't bother, my lady." He follows her urging and takes a seat beside her in the cushioned chairs.

She stays silent, just watching him. She folds her hands demurely atop her lap.

He says nothing.

Sansa stays staring at him, hesitant to broach the quiet, preferring to let him come to his words in his own time.

He's staring at the desk, throat flexing in his swallow.

Instantly, Sansa is reminded of that day she'd watch him spar with Robb. She's seen her brothers and Theon sparring often, seen them with Ser Rodrik and Jory Cassel, even with their father at times when he was in a mood to humor Robb. But Jon is…

Sansa straightens in her seat, a thrum of recollection lighting her skin.

Jon is something else entirely when he's got a blade in his hand. She's not too proud to admit the sight had taken her breath away. She'd watched in mute fascination as he glided around Robb effortlessly, striking with a strength that resounded throughout the courtyard, the coiled muscles of his forearms clenching with each swing, glinting with sweat beneath the afternoon sun. His hair had grown damp with sweat soon enough, clinging to his forehead in dark wisps, and his tunic had –

Sansa glances to her hands.

She'd clearly been able to see the definition of his chest, the hard lines of his waist, when he'd twist into a parry, the cotton material of his tunic pulled taut over sweat-lined skin. Her eyes had followed the sinew of muscle at his throat down, down, down – beneath the unlaced collar of his tunic.

And yet, what had struck her truly breathless – what had rooted her to the spot with a thrumming anticipation that made her throat go dry – was his eyes. That heady, uninterrupted stare when he tugged open the laces of his jerkin at the start of the spar. The way he _kept_ staring, as he pulled the material from his body, purposeful and intent. The dark, unfettered look he'd pinned her with as he stalked toward the center of the yard, body a rigid, lean line.

The way she hadn't been able to stop herself from glancing at his full mouth for half an instant when he'd finally torn his gaze from hers.

She wonders, deliriously, if his lips are as soft and plush as they look – if he would take her mouth gently and ardently. Or if he would take it roughly – as heated and cutting as the words that have spilled from that deceptively supple mouth of his.

Sansa presses her knees together, an unfamiliar warmth suffusing her, knuckles white in their grip atop her lap. She clears her throat.

This seems to drag Jon from whatever haze has overtaken him. "Apologies, my lady, for interrupting you." He motions to the unfurled scroll atop her desk.

Sansa brushes away an imaginary wrinkle in her skirt. "It's no interruption, really. A letter to my mother, is all."

Jon watches her, pensive. "You miss her?"

"Of course," she says, something halfway between a scoff and a laugh leaving her. She smothers it quickly.

But Jon does not comment on it, only nods, glancing back to the desk. "You've given up much to satisfy this betrothal."

Sansa furrows her brows. "It is my duty, my gift to my people. It is not a sacrifice made unwillingly."

Jon glances back to her, eyes alarmingly grey – Stark grey. And Sansa is thrown once more. Such familiarity, framed by such strangeness. It's a face she feels she should know, somewhere inside her.

Jon releases a rueful chuckle. "A sacrifice, huh? Is that what marrying me is to you?"

Sansa catches her lip between her teeth, suddenly regretful of how she'd said the words. She'd meant to reassure him, not estrange him. She fumbles for a response.

Jon doesn't let her flail for long, though. He shakes his head, a hand waving her off. "No, that's not – that's not what I meant." He heaves a long-labored sigh.

Sansa blinks at him, skin tingling, unsure and hesitant.

He sighs again, harshly this time, a hand raked through his curls. "I mean – do you not want more?"

Sansa sucks a sharp breath between her teeth.

Oh, but she'd dreamt of more. For so long, and so fiercely, and without reprieve. She'd dreamt of more since she first caught sight of him atop the steps to the Red Keep, wrapped in Targaryen red and black, a dark silhouette against the burning sun, her shadow-lined prince, her unmitigated future.

Her storybook tales set to a dark, uncompromising backdrop.

Her wonder made harrowing.

She licks her lips, curls her hands atop her lap. "'More'…how?" she asks tentatively.

_More_ , she thinks – in every way.

(Even in ways she doesn't recognize yet.)

More – somehow – than settling, at least.

Jon cocks his head at her, watching her in consideration.

She feels her cheeks heating beneath his stare, unbidden. He makes no comment on it.

Many moments pass – quietly and uninterrupted – while they sit staring at each other. It's not an uncomfortable silence. It's a lulling, thoughtful one, eyes curious and yielding. A temperate sort of ease settles between them.

And then Jon draws a soft, quick breath in. "May I tell you a story, Lady Sansa?"

Her mouth tips open, skin flushing at the strangely intimate way he mouths her name, the syllables awash in a tenderness she can't decipher. She nods mutely, her breath still held prisoner in her lungs.

Jon's gaze goes hard, hands bunching into fists atop his lap. He takes a single, deep breath – lets it to air. Something seems to settle within him. "Seven years ago, with Stannis' last attack on the capital, my sister was abducted."

Sansa's mind whirls. "What?" she says on a soft exhale.

"Rhaenys," he continues, voice low and rough, a tight swallow halting the words a moment. "She was taken from her bed the night of the siege."

Sansa's eyes go wide, spine straightening in her seat. "But I – I never heard…"

"You wouldn't have."

Sansa steals a sharp breath through her nose. She recalls tell of the failed siege from her father and mother, though never of any harm falling upon the royal family. Aegon and Jon fought in the siege themselves, but Stannis was driven away eventually, though not without losses, of course.

"But…how?"

"Baratheon loyalists in the Red Keep," Jon supplies. "She was to be his bargaining chip, should he lose the siege. She was recovered that same night but…but not before the damage could be done."

Sansa feels ill suddenly, a hand slinking up to grip at the collar of her dress. "Was she… was her virtue – "

Jon stands swiftly, effectively cutting her off. He stalks over to the desk, bracing his hands along the edge as a heavy breath racks him. She can see the clench of his knuckles from where she sits. "Was she raped?" he spits, putting form to the words she couldn't fathom herself.

She hasn't even the strength to nod, staring at him with a sickening horror when he turns to look at her over his shoulder, gaze dark and angry and more vicious than she's ever seen him.

Her mouth parts, words failing her.

His only answer is a short, perfunctory nod, his jaw grinding, a sheen of wetness over his eyes that he blinks away instantly.

"Oh gods," Sansa says on a spent breath, her hand releasing her collar to press over her mouth. She closes her eyes, shakes her head.

If it were her or Arya that was taken, if it was _her_ life and _her_ honor that had been threatened, taken, _defiled_ so.

Gods, she couldn't even fathom the wrath Robb would set upon the world.

She blinks her eyes open to find Jon turned fully from the desk, leaning back on it with his hands gripping the edge behind him. He's watching her, chest heaving in the recollection of his fury, eyes unblinking on her.

She shifts uncomfortably in her seat, the sickness still bobbing at the back of her throat.

How vile.

How utterly, needlessly vile. To be a girl in this world, and to suffer for it so.

'A bargaining chip'. Worth only in what she can be traded for – whether that be her father's surrender, or a single night of stolen honor. Sansa finds an unfamiliar anger stirring in her gut, slowly overtaking the disgust.

"Whether her rape was Stannis' intention from the start or just that of the sick, detestable men who took her, just a game to pass the time before they met up with the main Baratheon camp, I've no idea. And I don't fucking care, either."

Sansa realizes, distantly, that she should be offended by such language, but it's the furthest thing from her mind at the moment. She stands then, stepping toward him cautiously.

"It was done in his name," Jon continues, words a grated hiss, quite literally _shaking_ in his fury. "That's on him. It will _always_ be on him," he promises darkly. He tears his gaze away, glaring at the far wall instead, taking a steadying breath in.

" _The Baratheons are a gutless sort. No honor amongst them."_ Jon's words from that night ring hollowly in her ears. She swallows that thick slice of unease back, tucking it beneath her tongue.

"How did she…?" She hates how her words have failed her in this moment, but it's a tangled pit of anguish brewing in her chest that she doesn't recognize, and it's jarring, and alarming, and soon to overtake her. So, she breathes deep, licks her lips, concentrates on the slow rise and fall of his chest, the glaring white of his knuckles, the harsh line of his frown. Her mind narrows to a pinprick focus:

Jon.

She stifles the urge to reach for him.

Jon seems to understand her fragmented words regardless, and Sansa doesn't linger long on what that means.

He drags his gaze back to hers, something flickering in his eyes that looks strikingly like grief – long-honed and cradled like a wound. "Ser Arthur Dayne," he says, voice cracking at the end.

Sansa narrows her eyes in confusion. "Ser Arthur Dayne died in the siege, didn't he?"

Jon cocks his head, a subtle shake only intensifying her confusion. "Not…exactly."

She takes another step toward him, standing but a foot away now, hands bunching unsurely in her skirts. "What do you mean?"

Jon rubs a hand down his face, sighing with the motion. He glances away from her again, and the sheen of wetness is back, glaringly discernible in the low afternoon light through the windows. "Arthur rode out after them when he'd realized what happened – rode the whole night through, laming his horse, following their tracks until he came upon their camp. Managed to kill her captors without waking the rest of the camp, got Rhaenys on a horse but she was – she was mad," Jon cuts off, shaking his head, "She wouldn't stop wailing, brought the rest of the camp out of their tents, and Arthur barely got them onto the horse, tore out of there in the night, the Baratheons running after them and he – " Jon chokes back the sudden catch in his words, hand brought up to his mouth, jaw quaking.

Sansa moves instantly, before she even realizes the need in her, and she settles her hand at his arm, fingers gripping at his sleeve.

He stares down at the touch, his hand sliding from his mouth.

Sansa feels the salt sting of tears at the edges of her eyes, and she doesn't know whether it's from embarrassment or a deep, shuddering grief, but she thinks it doesn't matter, in the end. It doesn't matter at all, because he's still staring down at her hand and she thinks she even hears his breath catch and she realizes, suddenly, that it's the first she's ever reached for him herself.

That warmth from earlier, that unfamiliar coil tight in her gut – it curls in the pit of her now.

Her hand tightens over his sleeve, thumb brushing hesitantly along his forearm through the fabric. She barely breathes as she watches him beneath the flutter of her lashes.

He's still staring down at her hand when he finally speaks, voice clogged with emotion. "He took seventeen arrows to the back – a shield, in place of her – as they rode away."

Sansa's eyes flutter shut at the words, that sundering grief carving deeper.

Jon takes a breath, glances up at her. "We came upon them near dawn,"

Sansa opens her eyes as he continues, hand jerking when she catches him watching her. Her nails must be digging uncomfortably into his arm now, she thinks distractedly, but he makes no move to disentangle from her.

"Aegon and I, and only a few of our most trusted men, went out to catch the bastards immediately following Stannis' retreat, when we'd discovered what happened. Father had Rhaenys' attending maids taken for interrogation, or maybe just to silence them, I can't be sure." His gaze hardens on hers, shifting along the desk as he straightens somewhat. "You must understand, even if she'd remained untouched in their hands, her virtue would come into question regardless, were her abduction made public. She would be tarnished forever, her honor irreparably marred, her marriage prospects void – "

Sansa's other hand comes up to mirror the first at his rising voice, his sudden heated panic.

He seems to calm visibly, a heavy, shuddering breath leaving him, his eyes screwed shut as he reins himself in.

"I understand," she says softly, her own anger broiling in her chest. Her tongue is tart with it.

Jon looks upon her again, mouth a thin line, eyes impossibly dark. "We barely made it six leagues from King's Landing when her half-dead horse came over the hill toward us. Arthur was already dead at her back, his arms still locked around her, his head lolling over her shoulder, his blood drenching the front of her dress and all down her back, and the look on her face – gods, but the look on her face. She may as well have been as dead as him. So pale and drawn, eyes like I've never seen. Like she couldn't see me. Couldn't see me at all. And when we stopped her horse and Aegon dragged her from the saddle like a weightless doll, and Arthur's body fell to the ground and we held her between us, Aegon and I, and she just _didn't move at all_ , just – just completely catatonic, and she was whispering something, eyes dead, and when I bent my head to hers I could finally hear her –

"'Ride,' she kept saying. Over and over again. Said she'd begged him to stop, cried for it, clawed at him, every time she felt the thunk of an arrow piercing him as they fled, and he just tightened his hold on her and told her…'Ride'." Jon dips his head, face a ruin.

Sansa steps into him, her skirts brushing against his legs, her hands sliding up his arms to grasp at his shoulders. She's shaking her head, the tears gathering in her eyes unabashed now. Her throat is parched, the words laying slaughtered there – no air.

"He was the best man I ever knew. And he was – he was like a fa – " Jon stops abruptly, catching the words before they hit air, clearing his throat painfully.

"Oh Jon, I'm so sorry," she says softly, shaking her head, an ache in her, hands sliding back down his arms in what she hopes is comfort.

He stiffens beneath her hands.

She stills then, suddenly recognizing her slip in decorum, her informal address of a _prince_. She blinks wide eyes at him, but there's no trace of offense in his gaze, no discomfort or irritation. Instead, his eyes are searching and narrowed, his mouth pursed tight as he reaches a hesitant hand up toward the ends of her hair spilling over her shoulder. He catches a tendril between his thumb and forefinger, pressing it between his fingertips almost reverently. Sansa tries not to think of the way his hand is half a breath away from brushing her breast, or the way he leans toward her almost unconsciously, or the way his gaze flickers to her lips for the briefest of moments. She notices, belatedly, how close she's standing to him, how intimate their position against the desk, just as he stands fully, narrowing that distance even more, and she steps back to avoid the proximity, her hands falling from his shoulders as if burned.

She doesn't miss the brush of his fingertips along her waist as though he'd meant to reach for her, before she's backing away enough to avoid the touch.

Jon releases the strand of hair in his grasp, staring at her silently, chest heaving. She smooths her hands over her skirts, trying to rein her breath in. "Apologies, my lord, for the informality. That was imprudent of me."

"No, I – " He doesn't finish, mouth clamped shut over the words.

They stand before each other in stifling silence, Sansa unable to meet his gaze, and Jon unwilling to tear his from her. A sound brews in Jon's throat – not quite a grunt, not quite a sigh. It draws Sansa's attention back to him.

"The realm lost a great knight that day, and I…I lost more than that," he says cautiously, and Sansa cannot help the wonder that branches through her lungs at the admission, the openness of it.

Her hands unclench from her skirts unconsciously.

"Rhaenys and I, we – " Another tight swallow, a glance away. His gaze shutters off, dark and remote again, as though in another time – a place she cannot reach, nor is allowed to. "We were ill-equipped to deal with the aftermath."

He offers nothing more, though something digs beneath her skin with wariness at the words. She doesn't linger on it long though, another kind of dread pricking at her awareness instead. She cocks her head at him, brows furrowed in thought. "Why are you telling me this, my lord?"

Jon looks back to her, and he looks so utterly exhausted somehow – so worn and weary and grave. She sees it now, in the lines at his mouth, and his dark brow, and his steady, unavoidable gaze. She sees the glimpse of her father she'd thought to shut out, the Stark she was beginning to think had died somewhere along the way, before she ever set foot in a sunlit dragon pit.

(A face she feels she should know, somewhere inside her. A face she finds she _does_ know, now – if even in the smallest of measures.)

Jon licks his lips, and Sansa barely resists the startling urge to watch the motion, her own lips parting in quiet anticipation.

"I want to be in this marriage _with_ you," he says, gaze intent on hers. "And not against you, Sansa."

She stares at him, chest tight, the sound of her name on his lips nearly stumbling her. Her brows angle down sharply, throat flexing beneath her tight swallow. "It is my wish as well," she says numbly, breathless, still reeling from the thrum of heat his proximity had lit in her.

A gruff sigh leaves him, face flooding with irritation. "Then please understand why I spoke to you the way I did that night at dinner."

Sansa flushes with the remembrance, a familiar anger washing out the tingle of heat along her skin. She frowns instantly at the reminder, teeth clenching, though she tries to temper her reaction with the knowledge of what he's just shared with her, his rightful wrath toward Stannis, his fierce defense of family – a fierceness she understands all too well, given her own staunch loyalty to much the same.

"You want to be in this marriage with me," she says, testing the words along her tongue. "And I appreciate that sentiment, more than you can know, especially given what you've just shared with me, completely of your own volition. And believe me, my lord, the importance is not lost on me." She straightens her shoulders, lip caught between her teeth, stepping toward him hesitantly. She ignores the shudder that racks through her when his gaze catches the motion, following her with a dark look. "But this marriage takes two of us."

And maybe it's selfish of her, maybe it's spite. To still want an apology. To still smart from his remarks, his rebuke, as though she were a child playing at court. And maybe she is.

Maybe this is how Jon Targaryen apologizes, and she's just too stubborn to recognize it for the attempt it is.

Sansa sighs, pursing her lips.

No, she should be more gracious. Jon had nothing to gain by sharing his and Rhaenys' past with her, nothing at all but her faith, her understanding. The chance at her walking this path _with_ him. To know him.

In all the painful, ill-kept ways he's so clearly reluctant to allow.

And yet, here he is before her.

What is left, Sansa wonders, when it all gets stripped away? The princely titles, and the courtly conduct, and the house fealty. What is left, of Jon the man?

She thinks of the wetness dotting his eyes, and the soft press of his fingertips at the edge of her hair, and the easy, intimate way her name had left his lips.

Jon, the man.

Sansa swallows thickly.

She thinks she may be closer to it than she imagines.

"Thank you," she says, a strange longing settling in her chest, "For trusting me with this." She clears her throat, overcome with the weight of it. "I know it couldn't have been easy. I know…" She trails off, her words slowing to a halt.

Because what did she know? Truly?

_What did she know?_

Tears prick at her eyes – born of frustration and helplessness and a keen, ripe sorrow.

(She knows she doesn't want to be alone in this. That much she knows. Everything else is static.)

Jon's hands wind around her face suddenly, without warning, and he's stepping into her, backing her up with the fervency of it, and Sansa gasps at the motion, hands going for his wrists, eyes wide, breath raking from her. "My lord, what are you – "

"You're in danger here, don't you understand?" he hisses lowly, mouth braced just above hers, eyes blazing suddenly, the heat of him pressed to her chest.

Sansa wrenches her arms between them, pressing at his chest. "I don't – I don't…" She stops, swallows, trembling in his hold. "What are you doing?"

His fingers flex over her cheekbones, warm along her skin, his eyes darting between hers, and she slumps against him instinctively, hands curling in his tunic. "You're a traitor's daughter, whether you agree with the title or not," he says lowly, dragging her back to him when she moves to pull away, anger spitting white hot along her skin at his words. She narrows her eyes dangerously at him. He ignores the glare, eyes imploring on hers, a quiver to his brow that throws her. "And you have to be _careful_ , Sansa."

"For _your_ sake?" she spits, unable to quell the spite, the frustration. Tainted by association, isn't it?

"Damn it, girl, for _yours_ ," he growls at her mouth, stilling her.

Sansa blinks up at him, chest heaving, hands still clutched in the material at his chest.

Jon licks his lips, eyes still fervent on hers, his whole body taut like a strung bow. "I'd no intention to belittle you, to condescend, please, you have to know that. You're to be my wife, and I will stand by you, I swear it, but you cannot expect me to stay silent when you flirt with treason at my family's fucking _dinner table_ ," he snarls, desperate, breath hot against her cheeks, fingers digging into her flesh as his hands slip down from her cheeks, brace at the nape of her neck, cupping the back of her head. Her copper hair streams through his fingers, and a sharp, uncontrollable rush lances through her at the intimacy of the touch, the roughness of his hands, the possessiveness with which he holds her to him.

" _Our father is a fair ruler, but you can be sure, he will not tolerate treason."_

The words come back to her instantly.

_"My father is a good, faithful lord."_

_"No one is denying it. I'm simply warning you, in hopes that it stays such."_

A warning, he'd said.

Sansa sucks a sharp breath through her teeth.

It's always been a warning, not a condemnation.

"Let me go," she whispers hoarsely, trembling beneath his hands, weak and humbled beyond words.

He releases her reluctantly, stepping back from her, fingers trailing absently past her jaw when he withdraws.

Sansa presses her mouth into a tight line at the retreating touch, inexplicably cold at his absence.

(Ice used to be so comforting before.)

"For your sake, my lady," he begins lowly, his words slow and measured, "And for your family's."

She looks up sharply at that.

He sighs, and it seems to take all of him. "Do not be so reckless with your words. There are worse things to suffer in the capital than a wounded pride."

Sansa remembers berating Bran, when they first arrived at King's Landing, for even _mentioning_ the issue of succession should Prince Aegon die. And yet she had openly contested the Targaryens' position in the rebellion, defending her father (her father who had willingly knelt – to save his people).

Wolves do not kneel, she had once thought. But more than that – like an incessant whisper at the back of her mind – an inescapable knowledge settles over her –

Wolves protect the pack.

So, she will keep her tongue, so long as it means her family's continuance. She will collar her treasons, if it means safeguarding the North.

Sansa takes a hard look at Jon, at the open way he watches her, desperate, anxious.

Her shoulders pull taut.

She will keep her husband's confidence.

(With him, and not against him.)

The first offer of trust between them – tentative and half-formed, a new road being eked out in the wilderness.

"I understand, my lord," she says, the words steady. Her hands smooth over her skirts, jaw clenching tight.

Jon sighs, nodding. His gaze flicks to the wall, across to the door, back to her. He wipes a hand down his mouth, brows knitted together. "The past is the past. Let it _be_ that. And nothing more."

She looks at him shrewdly – silent in her skepticism.

Jon takes her hand, startling her. Her mouth parts, a sound catching in her throat.

He is infinitely gentle with his touch. "I will do my best to keep to that, as well." He offers a crooked grin, blinking up at her through the dark fringe of his curls.

The image is far more charming than she expects, her skin tingling when she feels the tender swipe of his thumb over her knuckles.

"You are free to call me on it, if I don't," he offers on a light chuckle.

"I will," she says automatically, mouth clamping shut after the words. She doesn't trust herself to say more.

Jon nods, looking at their joined hands. A weariness seems to overtake him then, a slump to his shoulders. "Let the boy squire for who he wishes – no politics about it."

Sansa sucks a quiet breath in, watching him in keen interest. "Let the past be the past?"

"Let the past be the past," he agrees softly.

So that the future may grow untethered.

Sansa is about to curl her hand around his, to anchor her touch to his, when he brings her hand up and plants a kiss atop her knuckles, quick and unexpected, releasing her hand after a moment's lingering.

She finds she wasn't ready for him to let go so quickly.

"Then, if you'll excuse me, my lady. I should let you return to your letters. But I…I thank you for your time." He folds his hands behind his back, keeping her gaze for another moment, and then turning swiftly for the door.

She watches him go, eyes trailing over his broad shoulders, the dark cut of his leathers, the shadow he lines her room with.

A slant of light from the nearby window breaks across his silhouette when he stops, turns to her.

"I would have done the same," he tells her.

Sansa arches a brow in question.

"You asked if I would have done differently from your father, if it were my father and brother murdered so."

Sansa's breath halts in her chest, a faint blossom of yearning planted deep within her.

She dares not move.

Jon reaches for the door, palm stilling over the handle. His eyes are dark and purposeful on hers when he tells her, "I would have done the same."

She moves toward him, but he is already pulling the door open, already stalking through it, already leaving her.

Sansa stands, quaking, fingers knotted together before, halted in the center of her solar, staring at the wide-open door he's left behind.

(More – somehow – than settling.

She had hoped for it once.)

His lips leave a burning imprint over her knuckles.

(More.)

There's a wolf at her breast, its teeth pressed to her heart, bared over her ribcage.

_More_ , it howls.

And Sansa does not know how to smother it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I mean, I'm not saying there's going to be a wedding (and night) in the next chapter, but that's exactly what I'm saying.


	6. Duty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "He stares at her long and hard, her chin caught in his hold, his gaze raking over her pale throat, and then down past the dip of her robe's neckline, along the line of her hips, before glancing back up. He fixes his gaze back to hers before finally speaking. 'What do you know of the marriage bed?'" - Jon and Sansa. Like the curve of the horizon, when the moon breaks from beneath its bow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, a couple things:
> 
> First, I want you all to know that any seeds I sow in this story _will_ be reaped, at some point or another. Even if issues are not addressed immediately, believe me when I say that it is for a reason. These characters are going to fuck up, make mistakes, and sometimes those mistakes marinate for quite awhile before being brought to light. A lot of you were incredibly insightful about Jon and Sansa's conversation last chapter, and I want to assure you that it's all gonna be brought to the table eventually. So bear with me, please.
> 
> Second, just a reminder that this fic is rated Explicit. There is going to be lots and lots of sex, as Jon and Sansa's sexual exploration of each other acts as a mirror to their emotional exploration. That being said, they are not going to be having amazing sex straight out the gate, let's be real, kiddies.
> 
> Anyway, I think that was all I meant to say. Oh yeah, and thanks for your patience on this update. But then, this chapter's also long as fuck, so I think I made up for it. You tell me.

Disclaimer: I own nothing, I make no money.

From Instep to Heel

Chapter Six: Duty

" _He stares at her long and hard, her chin caught in his hold, his gaze raking over her pale throat, and then down past the dip of her robe's neckline, along the line of her hips, before glancing back up. He fixes his gaze back to hers before finally speaking. 'What do you know of the marriage bed?'"_ \- Jon and Sansa. Like the curve of the horizon, when the moon breaks from beneath its bow.

* * *

Rhaegar summons Jon to his solar the day before the wedding.

"Close the door, son." Rhaegar tells him, and Jon does so, obediently.

He makes his way to the desk, nodding in greeting, "Father."

Rhaegar offers a soft smile, motioning for the seat across from him. "I see you've been taken with the Starks, as of late."

Jon stiffens, stilling momentarily as he lowers himself to the seat. He continues after an instant's hesitation, tongue curling behind his teeth in stilted silence. He settles uneasily across from his father.

It's a faint flicker that passes over Rhaegar's face, unrecognizable. "I was taken myself once – long ago."

Jon blinks at his father. He does not speak of his mother often, and Jon can count on one hand the times that he's referenced her. She is a shadow, a dark thing curled like forgetfulness in the corner of the room – lingering and yet transitory. Like the imprint of one's head on a pillow after rising. Like the dregs of wine left along a freshly emptied glass.

Like a bastard's mother should be – present once, when needed, and then void from all conversation.

Never taking air from the room.

Jon stares at his father. He rolls the words around his tongue before letting them to air. "Is that not what you wanted? A smooth marriage? A peaceful union between our families?"

Rhaegar considers him with an indecipherable look.

In his younger years, Jon might have thought the look stern, but he's grown to recognize it now for its thoughtfulness, its musing nature. He swallows tightly, apprehensively, all the same.

A light quirk of his lip is Jon's answer. "Yes, I suppose it is."

Jon doesn't admit to the light breath that leaves him in relief.

And what should he be relieved about anyway?

Rhaegar shifts in his seat, settling more comfortably, arms alighting across his chair's armrests. "I've called you here concerning just such a peaceful union."

Jon's brows furrow.

"You will need to secure an heir as soon as possible."

It is not an unexpected command, though the fact that it is a command at all still sets him to bristling. It shouldn't matter – at this point – what his father demands of his marriage to Sansa Stark.

It shouldn't matter because he knows he will meet the demand regardless.

And yet…

Jon swallows tightly.

And yet.

"Do not give this too deep of thought, son. This is not a matter of succession. Your brother and any children he may bear will always be the true line for the throne, even if you are legitimized."

It hooks him in the chest, like a corkscrew winding tight, carving into him slow and even – purposeful.

Jon knows all too well what a bastard is entitled to, and what he is not.

It seems a pointless thing to remember his rights to the throne above even his uncle Viserys, when his own father cannot seem to forget his failings.

His failings in simply existing.

(Would his father have never loved a Stark girl, Jon thinks darkly.)

Rhaegar tilts his head, eyes glinting violet in the morning light, a sharp reminder to his own mist-grey gaze. Stark in every aspect, except, apparently, for all the ones that matter –

To Sansa, at least.

Jon grinds his jaw. "I would never assume otherwise," he tells him.

Rhaegar's violet gaze softens, nails thrumming along his armrests. "No, you're too keen for that," he says, almost in admiration.

Jon hates how he preens beneath the praise, something crooked and needful blossoming out from his chest.

Rhaegar rubs at his chin, thoughtful as he watches Jon. "We cannot afford enemies of the North. And while Stannis remains an unaccountable threat, and the Ironborn and others grow more willful by the day, this marriage is still the most precarious of our relationships."

"The North has no need to rebel. They are faithful subjects," he finds himself saying, Sansa's words echoing faintly in the back of his mind.

Rhaegar eyes him sharply, hand stilling at his chin. He takes a slow, deliberate breath in. "You don't know how easily loyalties may shift, given proper motivation," he says lowly, a hint of disapproval in the words.

Jon clamps his mouth shut – a lonesome, needful boy again, suddenly.

"I will not rest my reliance on the North's _faithfulness_ , no matter how highly held Ned Stark's word seems to be," Rhaegar says with the slightest hint of venom. He smacks his lips in distaste. "I've seen what that faithfulness has borne when their Northern daughter chose outside their own interests."

Love, Jon likes to think (when he's of a mind to think it at all).

Except he cannot rightly say whether it was 'love' in the first place. And even if it was, if that's what bore him, then maybe it was better not to love.

Maybe it should have been duty from the start.

Jon's gaze flickers down to the desk, eyes alight on the scattering of scrolls, the forgotten quill set amongst them, the iridescent stone his father uses as a paperweight – the stone Jon had fished out of the fountain when he was but ten winters old, running to Aegon with his treasured find, a token for luck he'd given him when Aegon entered his first tourney.

He'd only discovered later, when he'd been summoned to his father's solar for some scolding or other, that the stone sat upon Rhaegar's desk, Aegon's own gift to him, accompanied by a false story of his own adventure finding the stone amidst his time at the tourney, a mark of victory, a herald of brilliance, before granting it to his father like a favor borne of sonly affection.

Jon had swallowed his remark back then– biting and desolate.

Much as he does now.

"No," Rhaegar says, determined. "We need something stronger than a man's word." His eyes narrow minutely at Jon, leaning an arm along the desk as he angles toward him. "We need a babe. A blood tie to the crown."

Jon keeps his teeth from baring, his snarl kept curled in his chest, along with his bruised heart.

They had a babe, he seethes silently, a smothered rebuke for only himself. _You_ had a babe, he thinks fervently. A quiet rebellion. A bastard's yearning.

Rhaegar seems to notice the shift. He clears his throat, keeps his gaze settled on Jon, never flinching. "We need a _trueborn_ babe. Ensure that, and the North will come to heel – fully. They will never endanger their own."

As though Jon was not, already, 'their own'.

(He's never lamented it so thoroughly as he does now.)

_Trueborn_ , Jon thinks, as scathing an insult to a bastard as any other foul word.

He keeps his gaze to the desk, fixed to that damned stone, light glinting off its curved edges from the half open windows beside them.

"Secure an heir, and we secure the North," Rhaegar says, voice firm.

Jon's eyes flick up from the desk to meet his father's.

Rhaegar leans back into his chair, arm sliding from the table. He is all soft edges and warm glances suddenly, violet gaze an appreciative, undemanding thing again.

No harsh glint of shadows.

Just a father's look – sharpened by courtly expectations, but still –

A father's look.

Jon resolutely _does not_ look at the stone atop his father's desk.

"You've always been dutiful, son." Rhaegar says fondly.

Jon's chest constricts – familiar and yet unexpected.

It's not a welcome pain.

"Be dutiful a while longer," he tells him, words clipped at the end – a king's command.

Jon opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again.

Maybe it is better not to love.

(It should have been duty from the start.)

"I understand, Father," Jon croaks out, clearing his throat, eyes stinging with embarrassment at the crack.

Rhaegar takes no notice it seems, nodding at his son. He thrums his nails along the armrest, once, twice. He smacks his lips in satisfaction. "Good. Now, let's have us a wedding, shall we?"

Jon forces a smile to his lips, stained at the edges with apprehension. "Yes, Father."

The words seem to echo in the room.

A promise.

A damnation.

* * *

"You make our House colors look good, brother," Rhaenys muses as she brushes imaginary lint from his shoulders, hands smoothing over his cloak.

Jon offers an appreciative smile, never fully reaching his eyes.

It is impossible to forget his place as a bastard, but even still, he will take his pride where he can. He smooths his hands over his chest, fingers running along the fine black leathers of his tailored jerkin. Threads of red run throughout the material, two symmetrical dragons curling at either edge of his collar. The cloak adorning his shoulders is heavy and extravagant, unlike the practical, fur-lined cloaks the Stark men wore upon their first day at King's Landing. Jon wonders at the comparison, shuttering the image away almost instantly.

A cloak in King's Landing is only ever an ornament. Winter has yet to reach this far south.

Rhaenys steps back, appraising him. Her brow furrows, dark eyes roving his form. "The royal tailors have done another splendid job."

Jon does not miss her frown. "You disapprove?"

She blinks back up at him, head cocked to the side. "You know of what I disapprove."

Jon looks away, stepping toward the side table, grabbing for his wine glass. He takes a large swig, the back of his hand braced to his mouth when he pulls the cup away. "We've had this conversation before." He pulls his hand away, leveling her with an even stare. The wine is dry along the back of his throat.

Rhaenys sighs, fingers trailing over the table ledge as she steps toward him. "Jon - "

"I'm sorry," he says, an aborted breath catching at the ends of the words.

Rhaenys stills before him, eyes dark and narrowed. Her face is a sharpened mask, lips pursed in thought.

Jon finds his chest constricting beneath the look.

She has always withered him so.

He clears his throat, taking another draw of wine, and then setting the cup back to the table more forcefully than is perhaps necessary. "I'm sorry, Rhaenys. I cannot be what you ask of me. Not anymore."

It was comfort once, when they were young and alone and brutalized beyond measure. When Rhaenys' sundering grief was made to be a muted whisper by their father, a buried abhorrence, dug deep into the quiet of propriety.

Jon cannot recall a single time, past the very night of incident, when Rhaegar had addressed his daughter's stolen virtue, when he'd held her and hushed her and cradled her trembling form against his, Arthur's blood still seeped into her silks. She'd cried into their father's arms that eve, but come morning, Rhaegar had shuttered away the violent sorrow of the night with an unquestionable decree.

Jon and Aegon's men were given no quarter. Anyone witness to Rhaenys' rescue quickly lost their head for it, and soon enough, it seemed as though it had never been.

And maybe that was their mistake.

There is only so much pretending that can be done, when reality festers like a slowly-splitting wound.

Rhaenys had nearly crippled beneath the weight of such silence, her swallowed grief a poison.

And Jon had never been able to deny his sister.

(Turns out, that was his downfall from the very beginning.)

In a world that sought to control them, Rhaenys sought the only control she felt she had left to her – warped and battered though it was. And Jon had let her have it, always the dutiful brother.

He loves Rhaenys, his _sister_ – always has. And that's the crux of it, really.

(But Jon has never had reason enough to question what sort of 'love' it should be, _deserves_ to be – nor has he had reason enough to think they each deserved _better_. Not until he saw a Northern daughter on the arm of a traitor lord, her father's smile jarringly warm, quietly affectionate. Not until he'd traded blows with a Northern son and witnessed the teasing, fond banter that followed, even as he lay in the dirt, defeated. Not until he saw the way Robb embraced Sansa, or the way Bran evaded Lord Stark's ruffle of his auburn hair, or the way Theon threw such casual taunts in Robb's direction, or the way Sansa brushed the dirt from Bran's cheek with a wet thumb.)

The crux of it has always been love. The wrong kind, and the right kind.

Somewhere in between is the inevitable kind – a shadow of a thing, a keening, needful love – never knowing its worth, or its purpose, or its bounds.

Jon finds himself in a similar state of flux – caught between what is and what should be, what was and what _shouldn't_ be.

He looks at Rhaenys and sees the sister he'd always meant to save, to harbor, to protect. He sees his failings – glaring and appropriate.

She'd never been allowed to openly acknowledge what had been done to her, never been allowed to express that pain, and what the two of them did in the shadows only seemed to amplify the darkness, another shame swept under the rug.

("Cry your piece in silence," their father had said, "And make sure that chamber door is closed.")

It is perhaps man's greatest mistake, Jon finds, in wanting to protect something by caging it.

Rhaenys continues her dark stare, heavy and weighted, barely a hitch to her brow at his words. Her nail taps along the side table in a steady, composed rhythm. "I don't see how this changes anything."

Jon blows a breath through his lips, shaking his head. "It changes everything. It _has_ changed everything." He takes a gulp, eyes fixed to hers. "And it should have changed much sooner, Rhaenys. You know this."

She huffs, shoulders straightening, lip curled back in a sneer. "A touch of Northern enlightenment?"

Jon doesn't answer, lips pressed together.

Rhaenys scoffs, arms crossing over her chest, an unconscious motion of protection Jon recognizes all too easily. "You think they'll ever understand you? You think _she_ will ever understand you?"

"They..." He trails off, the words dying on his tongue.

_They are blood_ , he wants to say, knows he shouldn't.

Rhaenys narrows dark eyes at him. "She will never know you like I know you." It's said in a heated whisper, and though it might have enticed him once – a twisted need to belong, to be _first_ in someone's thoughts, to be more than an afterthought, to be _needed_ \- now it simply repels him.

Gods, what have they done to each other?

What have they done to _themselves_?

Jon sighs, gaze dropping to his boots. He pinches the bridge of his nose. "I will always be your brother," he says softly, in what he hopes sounds like comfort, his hand falling away from his face with another shuddering sigh. "But now I'm to be a husband, and I..." He stops, swallows, glances back up at her with pleading eyes. "I never meant to hurt you." It was the last thing he'd wanted, when they'd first turned down this shadowed, thorn-lined path. Somehow though, he feels now as if he's left her behind, abandoned her along the dark path, let her sink back into the mud while he chased after the light.

He doesn't have the courage to look back.

(He knows he will find her reaching for him if he does, still, and maybe that embrace had been comforting once, but now -

Now he knows the taste of mud on his tongue.

He supposes, as a bastard, he should be accustomed to filth at this point. But he cannot help for wanting more – cannot help for needing it.)

"Then maybe you should have denied me from the start," Rhaenys seethes, fingers flexing over her arms.

Jon's throat constricts, his tongue heavy in his mouth, weighted with words he doesn't know how to say. "Maybe you're right," he agrees quietly, no resistance in his voice.

She blinks at him, mouth opening, perhaps surprised at his docility.

But he cannot bring himself to argue with her further, not now, not today. He steps toward her, hands grasping for her arms, rubbing up and down slowly in an easing comfort. She relaxes beneath his touch, watching him silently, eyes flickering between his. "Please," he says, the breath winded from him suddenly, an exhaustion overtaking him that has nothing to do with his body. "I need you with me today. I need my sister."

Rhaenys watches him pensively, the furrow of her brow softening at his words, a hesitant fondness bleeding into her features. "Jon," she says softly, carefully.

He gives her an earnest look, hands stilling at her arms.

A sadness curls across her face, one of her hands coming up to cup his cheek. "You will never be more to her than duty. You know that, don't you?"

Jon sighs, already pulling from her touch. Her hand falls away easily, fingers curling into a small fist at her side. "I have to try," he tells her, voice far more sure than he feels.

A beat of silence passes between them, with Jon looking off to the wall, and Rhaenys' eyes perusing him with poorly veiled intensity. She bites her lip, brushes a strand of dark hair behind her ear. Her face softens, fist uncurling at her side. "Jon - "

The door swings wide across the room. "Baby brother!" Aegon croons melodramatically when he sweeps into the room, hands winding behind his back. A brilliant smile graces his face.

Rhaenys rolls her eyes at his entrance. Jon throws an unamused smirk his way.

Aegon stalks up to them. "My, but you look dashing. Lady Sansa will be swooning at the dais, I tell you." A devilish smirk tugs at his lips, head inclined toward Jon. "I promise to catch her when she faints."

Jon curls a finger beneath his collar and tugs at the leathers, grimacing. "How chivalrous of you," he deadpans.

Aegon's smirk blossoms back into a full grin. He turns to Rhaenys then. "And may I expect a dance from my lovely sister during the reception feast?"

She cocks a brow his way, her own smile slowly forming at his easy charm. "You may," she concedes. She glances back to Jon, face a controlled mask once again. "And can I expect the same from you, brother?"

Jon looks at her, his frown harshening. He swallows tightly, licks his lips.

"If you can peel him away from his new bride," Aegon supplies with an arched brow.

Rhaenys scowls at him, her appreciation for his charm dying instantly.

He doesn't even offer her a glance in return, his eyes only for Jon.

Jon finds the stare unnerving for some reason he cannot name. He decidedly does not answer.

Rhaenys opens her mouth but never gets the chance to speak. Instead, Aegon raises his elbow, offering her his arm. "Come, sister. Let me escort you to the Sept." The words are warm, but unequivocally a command.

Rhaenys glances between her two brothers for a moment longer, lips pursing when Jon does not meet her gaze. She blows a breath through her nostrils in muted frustration, swallowing back her rebuke, hand already curling around Aegon' . She stops just as they're about to turn from Jon.

"Congratulations, brother," she says tartly, voice thin as reeds. "I hope you got what you wanted."

Jon finally meets her gaze again.

Rhaenys smacks her lips, a muffled sound easing from her throat, blinking furiously as she turns from him. She winds her hand more surely around Aegon's elbow, a smile upturned at him, and Jon watches them leave the chamber with stiff shoulders and a held breath.

When the door closes behind them, Jon wipes a hand over his eyes, breathing deep, leaning back along the table at his side.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

Learn to hold that tremulous quake tight to your chest – a sharp catch on the inhale.

Jon takes a moment, hands curling along the table edge behind him. He breathes deep – steadily, with measured calmness.

Thus, it begins.

Somehow, he makes it to the Sept.

It's a rush of faces then – his father's, Lord Stark's, the multitudes of lords and ladies present for the ceremony and then –

And then Sansa.

She cuts a light-touched silhouette from where she enters the sept, walking toward him on her father's arm. He hasn't even the mind to recognize the color of her dress or the manner with which she's pinned her hair. His breath stills in his chest, eyes riveted to hers. She makes her way down the aisle slowly, so agonizingly slowly. The blue of her eyes seems shockingly brighter, her mouth a trembling line, jaw clenched in her nervousness when she makes her way to him.

It is over in a matter of minutes.

Oaths are made, fealty sworn, cloaks adorned.

She is his, as he is hers, and thus they are bound.

Jon stares at Sansa. She stares resolutely back.

It isn't until later – much later, when they're sitting the head table, the reception feast in full swing about them – that Jon realizes it.

He never once looked to Rhaenys.

He never once _wanted_ to.

Sansa turns to him, wine glass raised.

His wife.

No, he finds, raising his cup similarly beside her –

He hadn't wanted to look away for even a second.

* * *

A married woman.

Sansa had always known this was to be her fate. She'd wished for it so dearly before, prayed for it, filled her dreams with it.

She looks surreptitiously to Jon beside her, eyes raking over his dark, leather-clad form, the way he leans back in his seat, the glistening stain of wine along his lips. Sansa shifts in her seat, cheeks heating unconsciously, gaze drifting back down to the table. She catches sight of Jon's hand resting along the wood near his glass. That large, calloused hand. She remembers the way it had spanned the width of her waist so easily, and how surely it had gripped at the hilt of his sparring sword, and how tenderly it had held her own hand when he pressed his lips to her knuckles.

Sansa draws an uneasy breath through her lungs, raising her own glass to her trembling lips as she presses her legs together.

Robb is at her side suddenly, dropping into the seat next to her. "Hello, princess," he greets teasingly, an ale-warmed smile gracing his lips.

Sansa huffs at the new address, reaching her hand to his short beard and brushing the crumbs from it with a practiced thumb. "Gods, you're a mess," she admonishes, though her own smile tugs incessantly at her mouth.

Robb beams proudly at her, allowing her ministrations. "I'm celebrating," he says.

"Oh?" Sansa pulls her hand from his jaw, cocking a brow his way.

Robb raises his mug of ale toward Jon, an incline of his head following the motion. "To my new brother."

Beside her, Jon chuckles warmly, raising his glass in a toast.

Sansa pouts. "Not that you'll be sticking around long enough to appreciate it," she accuses.

Robb's expression goes sour. " _Sansa_ ," he pleads, in that exhaustible, petulant way that always endears him to her. "You know I'd stay if I could."

Her pout deepens as she leans back in her chair. "Excuses."

A wicked grin breaks across Robb's features, and he leans across Sansa, adopting a conspiratorial look toward Jon when he hides his mouth behind his mug. "She won't admit it, but she'll miss me the most," he whispers to Jon.

"Robb!" Sansa near shrieks.

Jon laughs beside her.

Robb leans back, eyeing Sansa's incredulous stare. "What? Are you going to say I'm not your favorite sibling?"

Sansa huffs, pushing at his chest until he lands back in his seat, his laugh at her incredulity smothered by another gulp of ale. He licks the froth from his lips with a low chuckle.

Sansa purses her lips, spine rigid as she looks down her nose at him. "You've since lost that title, dear brother. I do believe Arya occupies it now," she says on a spiteful exhale.

Robb barks a laugh, taking another swig of ale. "Oh, that's rich. Don't tease, Sansa."

"I would never."

Robb throws a dashing smile her way.

They stay staring at each other for many moments, a quiet fondness creeping over them when Robb lays his hand atop Sansa's, thumb grazing over her knuckles in reassurance. She draws a deep breath through her lungs, lets it to air. She hopes Jon does not recognize the tremble in her exhale, the way her smile stiffens, the barely discernible sheen of wetness to her eyes that she blinks back furiously.

Sansa clears her throat. "Has Father arranged for your departure yet?"

Jon shifts beside her, hand curling around his wine glass. "You're welcome to stay a while longer," he says, and Sansa releases a low breath of relief at the words.

A small bud of gratitude unfurls in her chest.

Robb glances to Jon, a brow raised. "Eager for another beating?" he taunts.

Sansa shakes her head at his playful provocation, recalling the number of spars they've engaged in over the last few days.

Jon snorts into his cup. "Sparring with you could hardly be considered a challenge, Stark."

"I'm just wary of marring that princely face of yours," Robb says, a nonchalant shrug following his swallow of ale, an impish grin setting along his face. "Wouldn't want to leave my sister with a cripple for a husband."

Jon rolls his eyes, smirk spreading across his lips. "I think you overestimate yourself there."

"And who won the last spar?" Robb asks haughtily.

Jon grumbles into his cup. "I was distracted."

It seems a paltry excuse, and Sansa resists the urge to laugh at it.

"Yes, my sister tends to do that," Robb teases, hand squeezing Sansa's atop the table, before retreating.

Her cheeks tinge pink, her mouth opening in a sharp reproof.

"Aye, she does," Jon agrees lowly, voice a rumble beside her, and Sansa clamps her mouth shut, glancing to him out of the corner of her eye.

He's looking resolutely away from her, eyes still fixed to Robb, hand curled tightly over the stem of his wine glass. Sansa swallows back her words.

Robb twirls the cup in his grasp, eyes affixed to the motion. He seems immediately contemplative and sullen, all at once. "We'll stay another fortnight," he says, glancing back up to Sansa, face tender. "And then we leave for the North."

The North.

No longer her home. No longer anything but a memory, a frost-lined image, a white retreat. Her world is sun-warmed stones and golden halls now, a red Keep and redder mouths and a husband unlike the gallant prince she'd yearned for as a girl, but a prince nonetheless, and Sansa begins to wonder if gallantry should have ever been a part of her dreams in the first place.

"Don't stay away for too long, Stark," Jon says gruffly beside her, and Sansa turns at the words, surprised. "My wife is like to be very lonely without you," he finishes softly, eyes glancing to hers for but a moment, an imperceptible look in them.

Sansa's chest aches at the observation. Is she so transparent? Can he read her so easily now?

Another thought filters through the sudden melancholy, though – a darker, more treacherous thought.

' _My wife'_ , he'd said, voice low and unhindered.

She cannot explain the thrum of exhilaration that arches through her spine at the words.

She opens her mouth, ready to assuage him, and her brother as well, eyes fixed to Jon's own grey-hewn ones, when Robb piques a brow Jon's way, an elbow leaning across the table when he says, archly, "Is it not a husband's duty to see to his wife's 'loneliness'?"

Jon sputters gracelessly into his cup and Sansa howls her indignation, shoving at Robb's arm so that he almost falls against the table, ale sloshing over his mug as he laughs.

Sansa keeps her gaze resolutely away from Jon, heating in her seat, hands bunching back into her lap primly. A scowl sets across her face. "Lady Margaery looks mighty lonely tonight, brother," she says pointedly, almost smirking in victory when Robb's laugh ceases instantly. She leans toward him, a challenging brow lifted with a cock of her head. "Perhaps someone should see to that." She looks about the room in a show of interest. "Where is Theon, then?"

"Sansa," Robb warns, a huff lighting the name.

She smiles devilishly at him.

"Gods, but you're cruel sometimes," he concedes with a shake of his head and a short laugh. He throws a sympathetic look Jon's way. "You'll have your hands full with this one."

Sansa's eyes dart back to Jon's heavy hand atop the table, flushing at the memory of its heat at her waist, his fingers dug into the small of her back, and she reminds herself what tonight is like to bring –

That same hand, flush against her skin, no dress to bar her flesh from him this time, no barrier between his calloused touch and her trembling form.

A different sort of tremble racks her suddenly – foreign and heady.

Jon's hand twitches atop the table, fingers curling back into a loose fist. "Yes, I expect so," he breathes lowly, no chuckle to accompany the words, and Sansa drags her gaze from his hand, drawing her wineglass back to her mouth to cover her flushed cheeks.

"Well," Robb says, setting his mug down atop the table, "I guess that's my cue." His eyes rake over the crowd, searching. A smile sets to his face when his eyes alight upon Lady Margaery sitting with her grandmother across the hall. He rises then, setting a hand to the back of Sansa's head and leaning down to brace a kiss along her forehead. "Enjoy the night, sister. It's yours, after all." A tender brush of his thumb to the back of her head, another warm smile, and then he's slipping from her.

She resists the urge to reach for him, tongue heavy in her mouth.

Jon shifts in his seat beside her, drawing her attention. He's watching her, she finds, lips pursed in thought. It's unnerving, though it isn't any more intense a stare than he's offered her before. It's quite muted, to be honest, but she thinks she's beginning to become undone beneath his gaze regardless, no matter how innocent the look.

She wonders if she imagines the way his eyes flick to her throat when she swallows.

"My lord?" she asks, not trusting her voice to say more.

Jon licks his lips, studying her.

Her hands tighten in her lap.

And then he's sighing, glancing out across the floor once more, and then back to her. He raises his hand from the table, moving to drag the back of his knuckles down her arm – hesitant, slow - toward her hand.

Sansa sucks a sharp breath through her teeth.

"My lady, would you... would you perchance like to - ?"

"Might I steal my daughter for a dance, my lord?"

Sansa blinks up in her haze, catching sight of her father smiling warmly down at her across the table. Jon's hand retracts instantly and, without warning, she finds she misses the touch.

It's a startling, rocking realization.

Jon clears his throat, leaning back in his seat. "Of course, my lord."

Ned outstretches a palm, and Sansa smiles up at him, taking it with a shaking hand. Her father does not notice the tremble, or if he does, he does not remark on it, sweeping her to the floor instead with a hand cradled at her back.

She looks back just the once.

Jon has not stopped watching her.

* * *

"Why aren't you dancing? It's _your_ wedding." Bran says as he flops down into Sansa's abandoned seat beside Jon.

Jon can't help the quirk of his lip at the young Stark's familiar address, nor the raised brow that arches his way in answer.

Bran only looks at him expectantly, eyes bright.

Jon shakes his head, taking another sip of wine. "It'll take another glass of this to get there," he chuckles lowly, licking the wine from his lips.

Bran reaches for Sansa's half-emptied glass, swirling the liquid around with a gentle twist of his wrist. "It's good stuff, I'll give you that." He takes a large gulp himself.

Jon turns more fully to him, catching the dull pink in Bran's cheeks, the slightly glazed-over look in his eye. He smothers his laugh behind the rim of his glass. "Careful now, or we'll make a Southerner of you yet."

Bran looks down into the glass, thoughtful. "It's nothing like the ale up North." He scrunches his nose. "Robb loves the stuff. I think it's bitter and dreadful – especially coming up the next morning."

Jon actually barks a laugh at that.

"But this," Bran says, smile spreading over his lips languidly, "I could get used to this." He takes another large gulp, smacking his lips in satisfaction when he pulls the glass away.

Jon reaches for it, plucking it from his hand and ignoring his pout when he sets it further away down the table. "Slow down there, little lord, or your father will have my head."

"Father said tonight was an exception," he defends.

"That so?"

Bran reaches for the wine, fingers eager in their stretch, sighing contentedly when he settles back into his chair, glass once again in hand. "My sister is married now. Of course it's an exception." He leans toward Jon conspiratorially. "I think the world could use a few more weddings, in fact." Bran gulps back another swig.

Jon shakes his head, eyes glancing out across the floor once more. He catches sight of Sansa dancing with Lord Stark, her smile watery, a tremble to her brow he can see even from where he sits. The image strikes something in him. He shifts uncomfortably in his chair.

"She thinks you're handsome, you know," Bran says suddenly, without preamble. "I heard her say it to Lady Margaery once."

Jon narrows his gaze so suddenly to the boy he feels light-headed for half a blaring second.

Bran slouches in his seat, grumbling into his wine glass, "But I think you look like Arya."

Jon licks his lips, draws an even breath in, staring back out onto the floor where Sansa twirls in her father's arms. The music is a dim haze around them. "Your other sister?" he manages finally, clearing his throat.

Bran nods, tipping the wine glass slowly back and forth in his hand. He's silent for a beat, and then he leans over the arm of his chair, gaze turned up toward Jon's. "Did she tell you she thought you were handsome?"

Jon grunts a noncommittal noise. "It's going to take a lot more than her thinking I'm handsome to get us through the night," he says darkly, taking a large swig of his own wine, eyes flitting across the room. He catches sight of his father dancing with Daenerys through the crowd flooding the floor, their silver-blonde hair a blaring beacon beneath the torchlight.

"You mean the bedding?" Bran asks impishly.

Jon nearly spews the wine along his tongue, wide eyes flicking back to Bran, a hand to his throat as he swallows thickly. " _What?"_ he croaks.

Bran is nonchalant when he swirls the wine in his hand, face unimpressed. "The bedding," he says succinctly. "Is that what you mean?"

"There will be no bedding," Jon says testily, hand curling around his wine glass. He brings it to his lips, takes a steadying gulp. His eyes find Sansa in the crowd again easily, her flaming hair as brilliant a beacon as the silver-blonde of his kin – perhaps even more so, considering how instinctually his eyes find her amidst the flood of bodies. "Not a public one, at least," he mumbles into his glass, mostly to himself.

"Robb says you'll consummate the marriage tonight, though. Isn't that how it goes?"

Jon looks at Bran with a furrowed brow, lips pursed tight. "I don't..." He stops, fingers thrumming along the stem of his goblet. "'How it goes'?" he asks incredulously. "And what do you know of 'consummation' anyway?" He regrets the question instantly.

"Robb's not the only one who's been to Wintertown," he mutters petulantly, glancing at the slowly waning wine in Sansa's stolen cup.

Jon's eyes narrow at him. "How old are you again?"

"Old enough to 'wet my prick' as Theon so fondly calls it," Bran says defensively.

"Gods," Jon groans with a roll of his eyes, setting his glass down as he shakes his head. "You know, I don't really think this is the kind of conversation your sister will appreciate you having with me."

Bran gives him a withering look, and it almost makes Jon laugh again, the sharpness of his Tully blue eyes a sudden dour tint, cheeks still blazing in his inebriation. "She's not my mother."

"Aye, but I'd rather not tempt her wrath, all the same," he chuckles, settling more comfortably in his chair.

Bran looks out across the floor, a resigned sigh leaving him. "Besides," he says, ignoring Jon's comment, "You grow up around Theon and you tend to learn these things early on."

The reference makes Jon's gaze go dark, severe, his hands settling along his armrests stiffly. "Yes," he says, voice rough and clipped, "I imagine it's quite impossible for the Greyjoy to curb his baser desires." It comes out like a curse, a sneer. "I admit, I don't particularly like that Lady Sansa keeps such company."

"Oh, Theon would never lay a finger on her," Bran says, downing the last of his wine.

Jon eyes him skeptically.

"He's been in love with her since the day he met her, after all."

Jon stills, back straightening almost painfully. His hand itches for his wine glass again. Instead, he curls his hands tightly around the ends of his armrests. "That's hardly a comfort," he grinds out, trying for levity and failing miserably.

Bran seems to notice the shift. He cocks his head at Jon, expression thoughtful. "Sansa's a lady," he says, as though it is all the explanation needed. He pauses, brows furrowed, mouth parting in consideration. "And Theon knows better. Even if it was his wish, it wouldn't be Sansa's," he says surely, eyes never leaving Jon's.

Jon looks away, eyes fixing to the far wall, watching the flicker of shadows crossing over the stones amidst torchlight, the whirl of bodies like a monotone kaleidoscope. "Are you going to tell me you never wanted him for a brother? Never imagined their union?" He doesn't recognize the tartness lining his tongue, the fervency lighting his words.

Bran seems to consider his words for a moment, eyes raking over the crowd of dancers, cheeks tinged pink still. He takes a slow breath, lounging nonchalantly in Sansa's place beside Jon. "Theon's always been fun, and he's a wicked archer, no doubt, but – " And here he stops, brows drawn down sharply, gaze fixed to his sister twirling across the floor in their father's arms. "But I rather like having a prince for a brother." It would sound a touch more boyish and cheeky if it wasn't also accompanied by the slight lilt of his smile, the subtle dimming of his gaze.

Jon watches Bran from the corner of his eye, tongue curled behind his teeth – ready, cautious.

Bran sighs, and he is infinitely younger, a shadow of years past, a glimmer of innocence, and yet startlingly wizen and old in its purity – a contradiction. He sighs again, this time fuller – like his lungs are unclenching around a grasp of air. His eyes are unfathomably soft when they alight upon his sister across the floor. "She deserves a prince, after all."

Jon cannot find it in himself to contradict the young Stark.

A prince, she deserves, yes.

But not a bastard one.

His eyes follow Sansa long after Bran has left the table with a fond, silent nod, wine glass empty and forgotten atop the table.

" _She deserves a prince."_

Jon feels it is more censure than it is comfort, the words repeating like a litany in his head.

And then he watches as Aegon takes Sansa's hand in his, stealing her from her father's embrace.

Something coils in him like a sharp-toothed snarl – dark and greedy – at the smile she offers his fair brother when he tugs her into him for a dance, hand splayed at the small of her back.

(In the back of Jon's mind, that something coiled sounds alarmingly like a wolf's growl.)

* * *

Sansa bids her father a fond smile in farewell along the dancefloor, curtseying to Aegon before straightening back up, hand fitting into his easily, her other moving to his shoulder.

"You look stunning tonight, my lady," he tells her, his hand moving to the small of her back confidently, leading her across the floor.

She blushes beneath the compliment, and at the familiarity of his touch. There is nothing inappropriate in their position, and Sansa cannot figure why the thought should occur to her at all, except perhaps, for the knowledge that Jon sits not twenty paces away watching them.

Her neck flushes at the recollection, her smile strained when she meets Aegon's eyes.

They are a brilliant violet, breathtaking in the dim light around the hall. "I thank you, my lord," she croaks out, clearing her throat. She glances away, leaning into the sweep of his arm, skirts trailing over their practiced steps.

He braces his mouth close to her ear, and Sansa stiffens slightly at the motion, lips pressed into a thin line. "But surely my brother has already told you this." It is a tease, and a compliment all at once, but the low timbre of his voice relays another layer, dark and knowing. Its intimacy has her drawing a sharp breath in.

Her eyes flit across the hall, unconsciously searching for that familiar mist-grey gaze. She cannot find it in the whirl of bodies. "Your brother says very little, as you well know – least of all about his thoughts on me."

Aegon draws back to an appropriate distance, a telling smile gracing his lips. The image is startlingly handsome, but it's a fair sight when she's grown used to dark – finely sculpted brows and an angular jaw, sharp eyes and an easy, curling smile.

It is not the shadowed look, the beard-lined jaw, the rough gaze, that she has grown accustomed to as of late. She licks her lips, hand curling around his shoulder.

"My brother says much, when you know how to listen," he says, twirling her around the edge of the dance floor.

Her eyes wander outward again, and still, they find nothing.

Aegon chuckles then, and the sound eases her somewhat. "He may seem sullen, but he will be a faithful husband, I can promise you that. His fondness may yet grow. And yours, too, my lady."

Sansa bites her lip, glancing up at him. "I hope you are right, my lord."

He cocks his head at her, eyes softening. His fingers flex over her hand in his, cradling her form to his when he turns her, stepping into her. "He can be affectionate when he wants to be," he says lowly, meaningfully.

Sansa ignores the way his hand splays over her back with the words, spine arching beneath the touch. It is not the same kind of heat that Jon stirs in her. It is dangerous, warning. Like the twitch of a dragon's tail, a whip of wings.

A sharp glint of teeth.

(Nothing wolfish about it.)

Sansa clears her throat, eyes trailing to his shoulder, unable to keep his gaze. "I doubt I'm ever to gain such affections," she says.

A beat of silence passes between them, the music lulling into a distant sound. Aegon dips his head slightly, eyes somber in their brilliance.

She catches his gaze for a brief moment, breath caught in her throat.

He stays watching her, never faltering in his steps. "And do you want to, my lady? Gain his affections?"

Her throat goes dry, her lips parting. She purses her mouth instantly, considering. She meets his gliding steps easily, practiced and poised – instinctual. "It is the wish of every marriage, is it not?" she asks quietly, half expecting her voice to be lost amidst the music, the rush of air around their dancing forms drowning her out.

He doesn't answer her for long moments, his gaze flickering out across the floor, his attention leaving her for the first time during their dance. She watches the tick in his jaw, the shuttered expression that passes over his face. He is quiet as glass, as stiff and beautifully fragile, and Sansa softens at the look, relaxing in his hold.

"Yes, I suppose it is," he says finally, blinking the expression away almost instantly, gaze drawing back down to hers.

Somewhere in her periphery, Sansa recognizes the flare of salt-white hair across the floor, Daenerys settling back into her chair with glinting eyes – so like her husband's.

A violet so glaringly sharp, Sansa shudders without warning.

Aegon opens his mouth as though to speak further, head dipping down once more, and Sansa finds her chest growing tight, her cheeks warming, when she twirls right into a wall, or what seems very much like a wall.

Her soft ' _oof_ ' sounds through parted lips, Aegon's hand pressing her close as though to soften the impact, his amused "Brother" stilling her in his hands. She looks up and finds Jon at her back, glowering at Aegon. A familiar, wide hand slips around her waist from behind, firm and possessive.

"I'd like a turn with my wife," he says in a deep rumble, more command than request, fingers curling over her hip to tug her back against his chest. Aegon's hand stays pressed between their forms, his other still holding her own captive. They stay like that for what might have been minutes or might have been eternity, or perhaps what might have been just the fractured, blaring length of an instant.

Aegon's hand slips from her back, letting Jon press fully against her now.

Sansa's chest heaves, her hand pulling from Aegon's, eyes drifting down. Her cheeks heat in embarrassment and indignation, unable to look about the room at the thought of risking such disapproving gazes from the lords and ladies in attendance, or worse, from her _father_.

Jon does not relinquish his hold, however, and Sansa bristles at the demanding grip he keeps on her, wanting to strain away from it but finding the only escape to be further into Aegon's embrace.

She closes her eyes, tries to rein in her growing frustration.

Aegon chuckles knowingly though, stepping back from her with a sweep of his hand, relenting. She blinks her eyes open to catch him watching Jon over her shoulder, a smirk curling the edges of his thin lips.

"The lady is yours," he acquiesces, and Sansa feels the tightening of Jon's fingers along her hip in response.

"Yes, she is," Jon breathes at her shoulder, his voice suddenly closer, breath washing over the shell of her ear. She cannot be sure who the words are more intended for, but she finds it doesn't matter. She turns in his hold, face sharpening in her anger, stepping just out of his reach, his hand falling from her waist. Aegon stands at her back, his expression lost to her now, but she sees the way Jon's hardened gaze slips from his and down to her.

"Then shall we?" she grinds out, hand held up for him to take.

Jon works his jaw silently, a last lingering look sent Aegon's way, eyes narrowed, teeth clenched, before his hand is slipping into hers and he's yanking her against him with an arm snaked around her waist.

A huff of air breaks from her mouth when her chest hits his, pressed up against him far too inappropriately for such a public gathering. He's holding her tighter than Aegon had, tighter even than Jon himself had that first night they'd danced together over a moon ago. His hand has slipped past the small of her back and anchored instead around the other side of her waist, fingers gliding up her ribs, and Sansa leans back as much as she can, her hips inadvertently arching into his with the motion. Jon grunts at her mouth, eyes flicking down to hers, breath raking from him.

Her mouth parts at the look, Aegon instantly forgotten behind her. She presses a gentle hand to his chest, swallowing tightly. "Jon," she says warily, the admonishment barely a whisper, and he blinks at her, seeming to recognize the sound.

He licks his lips, glances about the room, eases his hold on her reluctantly.

She sighs in barely restrained relief when his hand uncurls from her side and slips slowly into place at the small of her back, allowing a breath of space between their bodies, their chests no longer pressed so tightly together, Sansa's hand smoothing up his chest to anchor at his shoulder.

Jon takes a breath, holds it tight, releases it slowly. His hand unclenches around hers, holding her palm lightly in his now. "My lady," he says, the edge gone from his voice, taking a step back and dragging her with him.

Thus, their dance begins.

At some point, Sansa notes Aegon slipping from the floor, a last violet glance skirting over their forms, before he is swallowed up by the crowd. Sansa returns her gaze to Jon and finds him already watching her.

Again, that lingering heat, that sharp breath at the brace of his fingers along her spine.

(Coming undone.)

She straightens in his hold, brows furrowed in disapproval. "I didn't particularly appreciate that display," she hisses, voice grating.

Jon frowns at her, but doesn't falter in his steps. "Display?"

She nearly scoffs at his show of ignorance, chancing a glance around the hall. There are many eyes on them now, and at some point, she catches sight of Robb and Theon at the edge of the crowd, watching them with dark looks, brows furrowed in concern. Her eyes sting beneath a salt-sheen, blinking away from them. She blows a steadying breath through her lips, gaze fixing back to Jon's. "I told you once before, I am not your dog."

He doesn't answer her at first, fixing her with a heated stare, hand still firm at her back. "No, you are not," he says finally.

"I am your wife, now," she seethes, as ladylike as she can manage.

His lashes flutter over his dark eyes, mouth parting slightly. "Aye," he says, and nothing more.

Sansa draws another steadying breath in, eyes dropping to his chest, her embarrassment and indignation still festering between her ribs. Her hand along his shoulder curls tightly in his leathers.

No, not the gallant prince that had filled her dreams as a young girl. Sometimes not a prince at all, it seems – brusque and uncompromising and with greedy, unapologetic touches.

Touches that have her breath stalling in her throat and her thighs pressing firmly together and her chest warming uncomfortably.

"I apologize, my lady," he begins, though the tone seems not so nearly as repentant as it should, "if I offended."

Sansa purses her lips, tongue held back behind her clenched teeth.

No, not gallant at all.

But then, it's hardly ladylike, she finds -

When she remembers the impatient tug of his hand at her waist and the hot expel of his breath at her ear and the lush arch of his lips when he'd mouthed those words -

_My wife_.

Sansa keeps her gaze fixed to his chest, her throat tightening with her heavy swallow.

No, not ladylike at all.

And perhaps they are not so different in that respect.

(Sansa finds the thought terrifying beyond measure.)

The music slows to a halt, the dancing couples easing into stillness around the hall, a last raucous toast resounding through the air, ale and wine spilling over rims, King Rhaegar's full, imposing voice echoing about the hall -

"To bed with this marriage!" A wine-sloshed laugh trails his command. "And to bed with you all, my esteemed guests." Rhaegar sweeps an arm to his chest in farewell, smiling unabashedly, stumbling the slightest touch down the dais, his Kingsguard ushering him from the hall.

Jon and Sansa stay staring at each other at the center of the floor, having pulled from each other as the music wound down, chests heaving slightly in their anticipation, an unbridled apprehension coming over Sansa suddenly.

Guests flood from the hall, the warm haze of merriment blanketing them, shouts and laughter and singing trailing after them.

And still, Sansa stays rooted amidst the storm.

(His hands and his eyes and his lips.)

She feels it tighten in her gut, that coil of impropriety, that uninhibited recollection of how it felt to be held by him.

To be _touched_.

Sansa licks her lips, one hand slinking up her throat to grasp at her collar, fingers curling tight, chest heaving, trembling and confused and utterly, _utterly_ unladylike.

Yes.

(It never truly uncoils.)

Terrifying beyond measure, she finds.

* * *

Sansa sits along the edge of the bed in her shift and thin robe, tied at the chest, hands spread over her thighs in trepidation.

Jon pours himself a glass of wine at the side table, turning to offer her the same as he leans his weight casually to one leg.

Sansa shakes her head a little too vehemently.

Jon only nods, taking a large swig of the drink himself, a trickle of wine spilling from the corner of his mouth. Sansa watches as he slips his tongue out to catch the trail when he lowers the glass. She looks back down to her knees.

Jon sets his glass back to the table, moving to stand in front of her, a calloused hand at her chin, raising her eyes to his. He stares at her long and hard, her chin caught in his hold, his gaze raking over her pale throat, and then down past the dip of her robe's neckline, along the line of her hips, before glancing back up. He fixes his gaze back to hers before finally speaking. "What do you know of the marriage bed?"

Sansa blinks at him in mild surprise at the bluntness, mouth parting. She licks her lips, steadying herself. "That it's where the gods may deem to bless us with a child," she croaks out. "My mother and septa told me that it is a duty every wife must share with her husband."

She does not tell him that they also promised pleasantness with time, with the care of a cultivated love.

Jon releases her chin gently, a gruff chuckle leaving him, the sound dark and promising.

No, she does not think he will like that explanation, if he even understands it at all.

"Then they only told you the half of it."

Sansa stares up at him, watching him in the low candlelight.

Slowly, so agonizingly slowly that Sansa is brimming with apprehension from it, Jon brings a hand to the tie of her robe at her breast. She stills, the breath halting in her chest. He winds rough fingers around the silk and pulls lightly, letting the robe split open in a quiet flutter.

"I know that men pursue coupling," she adds, voice wavering, hands curling, white-knuckled, along her thighs, "Even when not seeking to establish an heir," she finishes. She swallows, her breaths coming quicker. "For – for pleasure."

Jon pushes the robe from her frame, fingers skimming her bare shoulders past her sleeveless shift. He arches a brow at her words. "Just the men?"

A furrow lines her brow at the question, but she doesn't let it deter her. "I know the desires of men."

A chuckle lights his mouth then, short and rueful, tongue darting out to wet his lips as it leaves him. "Do you?"

Something ignites in her at the condescending tone – a single, solid breath stealing through her clenched teeth. "My brothers have visited Wintertown before. I know why men frequent brothels."

Jon's gaze flickers over her heaving chest, hand trailing from the pale stretch of her shoulder down the arch of her collar bone – faintly, barely there at all.

Sansa feels it all the same.

Another chuckle leaves him, this one almost warm in some kind of reminiscence. "Ah, whores," he says, understanding. "Yes, I suppose they are rather good for a few things."

Sansa's brows furrow deeper. "A _few_ things?" she asks, regretting the question immediately.

Jon flicks his dark gaze back up to hers, his hand still hovering at the edge of her breast, just below her collar bone. "But that is not all men desire."

The words are said like a confession – breathy and low. He pulls his touch from her chest, and Sansa nearly exhales at the relief, coupled with the stinging loss – a heat and a coldness all at once.

Jon clears his throat, one hand adjusting the waistband of his breeches, the other wiping down his mouth. He keeps his gaze fixed to hers. "You are my wife now." It comes out like a demand, the words thrumming with a greediness he does not bother to mask. "But I will not take a woman against her will."

Back straightening, hands slipping to the bed at her side, Sansa opens her mouth instantly. "I _am_ willing."

Jon cocks his head, watching her. It's unnerving – the intensity of his stare, the unrepentant rake of his gaze, covetous and curious all at once. "I don't think you know the meaning of the word," he intones, leaning toward her slightly. "Not yet, at least," he smirks.

Sansa frowns at the insinuation, pulling her chin up, ignoring the chill to her bared shoulders. "I've already readied myself, my lord," she tells him, remembering the hazel oil she'd spread along her folds as her mother had counselled her. "I intend to do my duty."

Jon's gaze seems to sharpen, darken, cut deeper. His mouth dips into a harsh frown, his eyes glancing down the length of her body only for a moment, hands bracing along the bed on either side of her, watching as she cranes her neck back to accommodate the intrusion. His eyes trail the path his hand had taken moments ago – along her shoulder and her collar bone and at the heaving, enticing edge of her breast. He swallows thickly, rocking back and forth with a hesitance – something warring inside him, Sansa finds.

And then he blows a breath through his lips, a shake of his head accompanying the sound. "Duty it is, then," he says, meeting her gaze.

Sansa sucks a breath through her teeth.

"Lay back," he tells her, all hesitance gone, hands going to the laces of his breeches.

She acquiesces immediately, scooting back along the bed, her robe slipping to the floor beneath her retreating form. She settles back along the pillows, and when her shift rides up her bare thighs, she moves to draw it back down instinctively.

Jon's rough palm along her thigh halts the motion, the warmth of him sudden and unexpected. Sansa stills beneath the touch, eyes riveted to the flex of his fingers along her pale thigh, edging the shift ever higher. She takes a deep breath. And then another. Quaking in her own skin, one hand curling along the pillow at her head, the other held uncertainly in a fist at her chest, Sansa watches the shadow that is Jon descend upon her. He crawls over her, intent and focused, and she barely has the mind to notice when it was exactly he'd shed his tunic and breeches, settling between her legs in just his smallclothes. She lifts one leg a bit to accommodate him, her thigh trembling at his hip now, and her heart begins to hammer violently when she feels him, slowly hardening at her center.

Sansa gulps, blinking furiously at the image of him above her, lean-muscled and shadowed by faint candlelight. He reaches for the fist held at her chest, pulling it away by her wrist, eyes never leaving hers. Her breathing deepens, her skin tingling fiercely. Releasing her wrist, he bunches his hand at the hem of her shift instead, tugging it up the length of her body.

Something of panic grabs at her heart and she stills his hand before it can drag the shift any higher than her stomach, her silk smallclothes now bared to him, her heaving chest still covered. "No," she gasps, licking her lips.

Jon's eyes narrow between hers, a frown marring his features.

She scrambles for the words. "I mean, not yet. Not…further than that – tonight, at least." She curls her trembling hand over his to indicate the shift, and not her intention to stall the event itself. "I don't – I don't know if I can be… _bare_ with you yet. Not – not entirely."

A gruff sigh leaves him, but he releases the shift, letting it stay bunched at her waist, his hand dipping to the edge of her smallclothes instead, the backs of his nails running just under the tie.

She nearly jumps out of her skin at the contact, and Jon notices, a self-satisfied smirk lighting his lips when she arches minutely at his touch and swallows tightly.

"Being 'bare' with me is probably the _least_ intimate thing we'll be doing tonight" he argues, one brow raised.

Sansa's lips part at the delicate glide of his fingers just beneath the edge of her smallclothes, her stomach contracting beneath quivering muscles. "Even still…"

A look of disinterest graces his face then, but the tug he gives the ties of her smallclothes tells of his impatience. "Keep your modesty then," he mutters. It is almost an insult, and Sansa tenses at the words, frustration bubbling in her chest.

He's staring at her mouth as he pulls the smallclothes from her, her hips lifting slightly to allow the motion, pressing closer to his own. A barely-there breath puffs from his lips then, the only indication that he is affected at all, aside from the evidence of his desire now digging more forcefully into her thigh. He tears his own smallclothes away in quick order, and Sansa has the blinding, thrilling urge to look down at the length of him, to see a man bare for the first time, but she stifles the confusing instinct immediately, bottom lip caught between her teeth, keeping her gaze trained to his own dark one instead.

She cannot help the startled yelp that escapes her when he runs two fingers up her folds, her body clenching, a fierce tremble traveling up from her core and branching out across her limbs. It's strange and disconcerting and leaves her far more breathless than she wants to be in this moment.

_Don't_ , she wants to tell him. _Don't make me feel that_. Nothing but a soft croak leaves her.

He moves to stroke her again but she clamps her thighs as tightly together as she can with him between them. She shakes her head in the dark, chest heaving. Jon stills, staring at her, before his hand retreats with a grim understanding.

She swallows tightly, relief prickling just beneath her skin. She doesn't trust the heat that racks through her when he touches her so intimately.

"Hazel oil," he says on a scoff, spreading the moisture from his fingers over his cock, and Sansa thinks she hears irritation underlining his words as he gives himself two, three, four quick pumps, before lining up at her entrance.

He's watching her mouth again, his gaze hooded, and when he leans down to kiss her, to claim her mouth with his own, Sansa turns her head suddenly, so that his lips brace against the cut of her cheekbone instead. She stills, startled at her own reaction, blinking out into the darkness with her tongue caught behind her clenched teeth.

Jon growls his frustration as he draws back to look at her, brows furrowed sharply, mouth dipping into a harsh frown, eyes glinting almost threateningly in the flickering of candlelight beside the bed. "Damn it, girl, I'm trying to – " He stops, bites back the words, a grumble of irritation brewing in his chest. "If you don't let me at least _try_ to help you enjoy it then – "

"I don't need to enjoy it," she interrupts him quickly, voice hollow and small, staring up at him in keen disquiet. Her hand curls in the sheets at her side.

_Please_ , she thinks – desperately.

Jon's frown deepens, if possible, eyes shifting between hers, dark and agitated.

They lay there staring at each other for long moments, Sansa's breaths coming short and quick, her lip caught between her teeth once more.

Jon cocks his head as he looks at her, and the angle shifts the shadows of the room over most of his face, so that she cannot rightly see his expression while he considers her, quietly, a thrum of unease building between them, and then she's biting back another startled yelp when she feels him gripping at her thigh, nudging her legs further open as a low, restless growl leaves him.

"This will hurt," he promises, fingers digging into the soft flesh of her thigh, his cock pressed to her entrance, eyes trained on hers. He waits for her slow nod.

"I understand," she says on a gulp.

And yet she doesn't. She couldn't possibly. Not when he slowly pushes inside her with a deep, full thrust, her gasp staining the air between them, and not when he drops his head to her shoulder and releases a rumbling groan, stilling inside her, so unbearably tight, and not when he pulls back out steadily, achingly, almost completely withdrawing from her before plunging back in with a decidedly feral snarl. Again, and again, and again. He builds up an even pace, sliding in and out of her cunt with ease now. The slick sound of him rutting into her fills the room, and Sansa turns her head at the obsceneness of it. Her vision flashes white, tears building at the edges of her eyes, teeth bared as she rocks beneath him, the pain flaring into a low haunting in her gut, between her thighs, in the deepest parts of her.

She releases the pillow at her head to grip at his shoulder instinctively, bracing against him, nails digging into his flesh, and the touch seems to affect him, because his pace stutters a moment, his breathing deepening, his mouth hovering over the edge of her shoulder. Sansa squeezes her eyes shut, muscles clenching, cunt tightening over his cock as she rides out the pain, a dull throbbing starting to overtake her.

Jon pants at her ear, a low groan leaving him when she clenches around him. "Fuck, you're so – I'm gonna – " He presses her thigh back with his wide hand, opening her up further, slamming his hips into hers without restraint now. "So fucking tight," he groans out at her shoulder, hot mouth grazing the shell of her ear.

Sansa cries out, unable to keep the sound in, and Jon growls at her throat, panting raggedly at her ear when he comes undone, spilling inside her, hot and thick and relentless. He pumps into her a few more languid times before slumping against her, shoulders trembling from the aftershocks, elbows braced along the bed so as not to crush her entirely, and then he pushes from her, trying desperately to catch his breath. His softening cock slips out of her as he drops back along the bed next to her, and she winces at the motion, his seed trailing over her thighs. She touches a trembling hand to the wetness, smearing his seed at her fingertips, cunt and thighs aching, and then she brings her hand up to catch sight of the wetness glinting in the faint candlelight.

She stares at the jarring image so long that she jerks in surprise when she finally feels him dragging her shift back down over her hips. She glances to him beside her, catches him watching her, dark curls damp with sweat at his forehead, his lips parted, chest heaving slowly and steadily. Something about the way he tucks the material of her shift down her thigh is impossibly tender – at complete odds with the ruthless, almost angry way he'd fucked her only moments ago. His lids flutter over dark eyes, silent words painted over his lips, face drawn in something too harsh to be called contrition but not harsh enough to be called unapologetic.

In a few moments, when her legs stop trembling and the pain ebbs well enough away and her breathing has returned to normal, she will make her way from the bed over to the washing basin to clean herself. But for now, she keeps her eyes steady on this dark husband of hers. She watches him in shadow.

She ignores the way his hand edges along the hem of her shift, and the tightness in her gut that takes hold of her when he curls his hand possessively over her thigh.

He never looks away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of you might be thinking, 'wow, dick move, orange, you just skipped over the _entire _fucking ceremony', but here's the thing. No one wants to read that. We all know what happens. I'm not here to detail every fucking moment in this world - just the important ones. The intimate bits between the characters, the interpersonal conflicts, the emotional beats holding this story together. I feel like most of you already know that about my writing style, but hey, if you're new, heads-up - micro-managing the story is not my shtick.__
> 
> __Hope you guys enjoyed. :)_ _


	7. Taken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "(His calloused palm at her thigh, the graze of his fingers along the edge of her smallclothes, the hot pant of his breath at her ear.)
> 
> Did you like it?
> 
> The question presses sharp and insistent at the edges of her mind." - Jon and Sansa. Like the curve of the horizon, when the moon breaks from beneath its bow.

Disclaimer: I own nothing, I make no money.

From Instep to Heel

Chapter Seven: Taken

_"(His calloused palm at her thigh, the graze of his fingers along the edge of her smallclothes, the hot pant of his breath at her ear.)_

Did you like it?

 _The question presses sharp and insistent at the edges of her mind."_ \- Jon and Sansa. Like the curve of the horizon, when the moon breaks from beneath its bow.

* * *

"You slept well, I hope, brother?" Aegon's eyes crinkle with his smile as he bites off a piece of salted seabass.

Jon offers a tight smile in return, leaning back in his chair at the table, shoulders bunched. Aegon does not wait for the ladies of the house to join them, tucking into his breakfast with poised and slender hands. Jon picks at a piece of brown bread, eyes lingering over his untouched plate. He glances to the door again, half expecting Sansa to walk through it this very moment. "Not particularly," he sighs, tearing off another piece mindlessly.

"Yes," Aegon muses, "I see you're clearly distracted."

Jon raises a brow at him.

Aegon continues chewing, waving a hand nonchalantly, knife in his grip as he speaks, "The first night can have that affect."

"And you've enough under your belt to advise me on it?" Jon bites out, tongue smarting instantly when the words leave his mouth. He pulls a sharp breath in, turns his gaze to the table.

Aegon stops chewing, swallows slowly – demurely. A humoring smile tugs at his lips. "A wife is different."

Jon does not argue him that one, but he decides to keep his thoughts on the matter to himself, drawing his shoulders back, trying to ease some of the tension there.

Sighing almost wistfully, Aegon sets his cutlery down. "Daenerys has not changed much since that first night." A chuckle lights his lips, almost nostalgic. "Still as demanding and insatiable as ever."

Jon scrunches his nose in distaste, resisting the urge to reach for his wine, wash the lump of bread in his throat down.

"I don't imagine Lady Sansa was so, however."

Jon's gaze snaps to his brother, hand clenching into a fist atop his thigh. He draws a slow, tight breath in.

Aegon cocks his head at Jon, leaning back easily in his chair, eyes glinting sharply – a violet lance cut through the brisk, morning light streaming through the windows. He smiles again, the ends of his lips curled like the whip of a dragon's tail. And then he returns to his food, resuming his meal smoothly. Another bite. A slow, long chew.

Jon watches his brother, knuckles white. "Is this really the conversation you want to be having over breakfast?" he manages tightly.

Aegon makes a small sound of contemplation in his throat, glancing back up at Jon. "My appetite isn't so easily curbed, brother. Is yours?" Aegon swallows, a flash of teeth peeking out beneath his curved lips.

Jon grinds his jaw, his bitterness curling like smoke in his chest – sour and lung-scraping.

Aegon continues with ease. "I do hope at least _you_ enjoyed your evening, brother. Mine was terribly lonesome." He laughs, short and disturbingly bright. "Daenerys would not have me last night."

"I can hardly suspect why," Jon snaps dryly, mouth clamping shut when he realizes what he's said.

Aegon watches him with unblinking eyes, rolling the food around his mouth leisurely, wrists resting atop the table edge, cutlery still in hand.

Jon thinks of the petal crushed under Aegon's boot in the garden, and the flick of the riding crop to the backs of his calves, and the smooth, weathered stone sitting pointedly atop their father's desk.

And then he thinks of the way Aegon had stepped back from Sansa at the wedding feast, a relinquishing sweep of his arm and a brotherly smile aimed his way – how he had not objected to Jon's intrusion, nor his brusque manner.

Jon swallows tightly.

But of course.

He should have known better. Aegon forgets little, and forgives even less.

Jon smooths his hands along his thighs, chest constricting, waiting, poised at a knife's edge.

(He should have known better.)

Aegon leans forward across the table, smirk adorning his lips, brows arched in a conspiratorial look, as though eager to share a well-kept secret. "You've never spilled in a woman before, have you?" he asks softly, almost carefully to any other ear.

Jon hears the edge to it, easily enough.

He works his jaw, eyes fixed to Aegon.

His brother leans back smoothly, smirk still curling the edges of his lips. "Too fearful of spawning a bastard, weren't you?"

Jon has no answer for him, can only turn his gaze away, fix it glaringly to his wine glass, feel his skin prick with a resentment too familiar.

"They're not such terrible things, you know – bastards," Aegon says nonchalantly, setting his knife down to reach for his own glass, bringing it to his lips before he pauses, as though in sudden remembrance, "When properly kept."

Jon blows a breath through his lips, heated and halting, unable to keep the glare from his gaze when he looks back to Aegon.

His brother only offers him a lifted brow, lips stained red with wine when he pulls the glass from his mouth.

Jon feels the words brimming in his throat, rancid and airless – a choke, a strangle – feels his mouth open even still, a recklessness blooming beneath his skin, as heady as it is unfamiliar, and –

The door swings wide, Sansa stepping through, Rhaenys following behind her with a dour expression.

Jon swallows that slice of shame back down –stinging and raw.

"Sisters," Aegon greets, and Jon does not miss the address, nor does Sansa, it seems, as she stops short, blinking doe-eyed at him for a spell, before she's nodding her greeting, cheeks a faint pink, stepping gracefully toward the seat beside Jon. She doesn't meet his eyes.

Rhaenys lets out a scoff at Aegon, shaking her head with pursed lips, settling into the empty space beside him.

Aegon cocks his head in question, eyes drifting to the closed door. "You seem to have lost my wife along the way," he says, amusement lilting his tone.

Rhaenys reaches for the sugared plums instantly. "Daenerys says she's too ill to break her fast with us this morning." Sucking a piece of fruit between her teeth, Rhaenys sends a meaningful look Aegon's way, swallowing after a pointed chew. "She sends her regards." A sugared smile follows the words.

Jon manages to bite back his scoff. It isn't the first time Daenerys has sought to spite Aegon with her absence.

Aegon picks the napkin up from beside Rhaenys' plate and raises it to her with an arched brow. She takes it with a roll of her eyes, dabbing at her sugar-smeared mouth. "I'll have to see to her later, then." His gaze flicks to Jon and he has the unexplainable urge to grab for Sansa's hand next to him. He resists the inclination – only barely. "Make sure she's not too unwell," Aegon finishes, his violet gaze settling back on Rhaenys

She's already filling her plate, well past the conversation.

Beside Jon, Sansa is quietly cutting into her own food. He takes a breath, wills the lingering rage from his face, tries to smooth his brow and his frown and his hardened gaze, dipping his head to catch her eye. "My lady?"

She flickers soft blue eyes up at him and for an instant, they stay staring at each other.

All at once he remembers the way his palm had fit around her thigh and the gasp she'd sounded at his ear and the drowning, bone-singing heat of her when he'd finally sunk inside her. His gaze flicks to her mouth, and watches it purse.

When he glances back up to her eyes, he finds her staring unblinkingly at him, fork halted halfway to her mouth. She clears her throat, settles the fork back to her plate.

Jon glances away, wiping a hand down his mouth. A gruff exhale leaves him, and he reaches for his own fork, eager for a distraction. "I'm sorry for leaving before you woke this morning," he says softly, careful not to let the conversation reach his siblings' ears. He glances up to find the two already occupied by their own discussion, and looks back to Sansa with a barely discernible sigh of relief.

She only nods, glancing down to his hands as he digs into his quickly cooling roast.

"I...had matters to attend to," he mumbles.

He feels the lie shrivel up along his tongue even as it tastes air.

Blessed air.

And that's what he had needed – after waking groggily in the early hours of the morning, body curled loosely around her sleeping form, half-hard at her backside, and he'd wanted nothing more than to trail his fingers down the smooth line of her arm, and then lower over the curve of her hip, her skin warm and supple to the touch, and he'd nearly rocked into her on instinct, lulled by sleep and hazy desire, before the night rushed back to him in a flood of memories.

The pained whimper she'd tried to smother when he'd first entered her, the stiffness of her frame, muscles bunched achingly tight, the way she'd squeezed her eyes shut, those soft, iridescent blues blanking out into shadow -

The way he'd clearly hurt her.

(Warnings mean little to nothing in this house, and Jon should know that by now.)

He swallows thickly, pausing in his determined cutting, eyes blinking furiously down at his plate.

Jon had torn himself from the bed that morning, dressed as swiftly and quietly as he could, and then left Sansa to her slumber.

He tells himself it couldn't have been helped.

He'd tried to be quick about it, tried to bring himself to completion without prolonging her pain, and truth be told, it wasn't particularly difficult when she was so warm beneath him, so soft and breathy, so tight around his cock.

It's easy to get lost in Sansa Stark, he finds.

Except, there's a smaller, more insistent part of him, that tells him he is wrong.

" _I intend to do my duty,"_ she'd said, and it had been his unraveling

Jon glances up to Rhaenys, finds her watching him with a perceptive stare. He growls his frustration beneath his breath, tearing back into his food.

Sansa does not answer him, only nods mutely, gaze flicking back to her own plate.

His eyes sting.

And what a stupid, foolish hope.

(The realization is blinding.)

He understands now, what he'd been so adamant to smother before, what he'd been unable to admit to, even in the darkest parts of him.

He wants her.

He _wants_ her – maddeningly.

" _You will never be more to her than duty."_

He only wishes she wanted him back.

* * *

"Alright, I've been patient enough I think," Margaery says on a laugh, shuffling closer to Sansa in her seat. "You _must_ tell me how the wedding night went. Was it everything you'd hoped for?"

Sansa blinks alarmingly wide eyes up at Margaery, hand stilling halfway off the table, cream puff caught between her thumb and forefinger. "The wedding night?" she manages after a gulp.

Margaery cocks her head, a mischievous smile tugging charmingly at her lips. "Yes, of course. From what I saw at the feast, your Jon simply couldn't _wait_ to get you back to your chambers." She shivers deliciously, leaning closer to the younger woman over the armrest of her chair.

Sansa drops the pastry in her hand back down to her plate, going for the napkin in her lap, throat tightening. "Yes, well, it was...unexpected." She smooths her hands over the napkin in her lap, the breeze from the open gardens fluttering strands of copper around her face.

"I'm sure," Margaery smirks. She urges her on with a waving motion of her hand.

Sansa bites her lip, and then she turns fully in her seat to face the Tyrell, brows furrowed sharply. "Margaery, he... he tried to touch me... well, _there_." She bites her lip again, a flush of remembrance branching through her, cheeks heating.

"I should hope so," she says, a laugh bubbling at the edges of her lips, before she catches the expression Sansa wears, her smile wilting instantly. She clears her throat, straightening in her seat. "And that...unsettled you?" she asks now, voice calmer.

Sansa wears a worried thumb into her opposite palm, watching the motion. "I didn't want him to," she says, and she remembers, instantly, the heat that had suffused her when he did, the almost uncontrollable urge to shift her hips up toward his touch, to chase that fluttering thrum of nerves that ricocheted through her. She clamps her mouth tight around the words, chest tight with her embarrassment.

Oh, but what would Margaery think of her? What would her _mother_ think of her?

"Sansa," Margaery says, infinitely soft, her gaze concerned, body shifted toward her. "Did he..." She stops, brows bunched tightly together, voice working over hoarse words. "Did he hurt you?"

Sansa blinks back up at her, head shaking vehemently. "Oh no, I mean, yes, well – Mother always said – I mean –" Sansa sighs, takes a deep breath, tries to control her raging heart. "I knew there would be some pain the first time, but I... I didn't..."

Margaery's hand curls over hers in her lap, stilling the nervous motion of her thumb against her palm. The touch is light, comforting. "Sansa," she begins, eyes imploring on hers, "When he kissed you, when he touched you, did he not – "

"Oh, he never kissed me."

Margaery blinks at her, suddenly alarmed. "Sansa."

"I couldn't... I couldn't let him."

Margaery's brows dip down in confusion. " _You_ couldn't...?"

She shakes her head, hand turning beneath Margaery's to link her fingers through hers, palm to palm. "I wasn't ready for that. To be kissed – oh, but I want it to _mean_ something, Margaery. I want it to be more than expectation, and I couldn't help remembering all those stories from the books, and the songs, and the tales, and is it wrong? To want such a thing? Even still? Is it wrong, Margaery?"

It was too intimate.

His hand on her thigh, and his stiffness pressed between her legs, and the heat of his bare stomach braced against hers and still -

None of it could compare to the intimacy of his breath fanning her lips, his dark stare through the candlelight, the pink tip of his tongue edging out to wet his lips.

He could fuck her ragged and still, she'd never be as breathless as she'd been in that moment, when he'd stared at her, leant down, moved to take her mouth with his.

To taste and touch and _know_ each other.

To share breath.

No, Sansa had not been ready for such intimacy. And even when he'd slipped inside her, and even when he'd _spilled_ inside her, and even when he'd fallen asleep beside her once they'd taken their turns at the wash basin – _even then_ -

She couldn't let him kiss her.

Margaery rubs a comforting thumb along her knuckles, a sad sigh leaving her. "Oh, dear girl."

"It will come with time," Sansa says reassuringly, mostly to herself. "With care and time, I will try to love him. And maybe then..." She trails off, eyes glancing over the table. She never finishes the thought.

Margaery stays silent at her side for many moments, just holding her hand, letting the silken afternoon light dance across the table set. And then she makes a sound like a hum, thoughtful and cautious, leaning back in her chair as her hand slips from Sansa's. "Sansa, let me ask you something."

She raises a brow in question, expectant.

Margaery seems to mull over her words a moment, expression still cautious and concerned. "When he touched you – when he tried to... to _ease_ you – did you like it?"

Sansa's mouth parts, cheeks heating.

(His calloused palm at her thigh, the graze of his fingers along the edge of her smallclothes, the hot pant of his breath at her ear.)

_Did you like it?_

The question presses sharp and insistent at the edges of her mind.

Sansa swallows tightly, eyes searching Margaery's. "That would be... improper."

Margaery cocks her head, voice still soft and careful. "Why?"

"I do not love him." The answer leaves her far more readily than she expects, and it carves a longing in her chest she isn't prepared for – a gentle throbbing between her ribs. She swallows back the trepidation.

Shifting in her seat, Margaery inclines her head toward Sansa, eyes focused. "And what if I told you that didn't matter?"

Sansa stares at her, brows scrunched in thought, hands bunching together in her lap once more. "What do you mean?"

Margaery blows a steady breath through her lips, a thoughtful expression gracing her face. "What if I told you, there can be pleasure _regardless_ of love? What if I told you, you deserved it, even still?"

Sansa blinks at her, a frown marring her features instantly. "But I don't..."

"Dear girl, there is already enough grief in this world without you sabotaging your own marriage. Let the man please you. It seems he _wants_ to, at least, which is more than can be said of most husbands."

Sansa's frown deepens, an uncomfortable warmth unfurling in her chest, something close to yearning, if she lets herself linger on it for too long. "And what makes you think he has any interest in that regard?"

At this, Margaery throws a baleful look her way, lips pursed as though in disappointment. "Anyone who saw him with you at the wedding feast couldn't say otherwise," she remarks pointedly.

"Gods, but that was embarrassing," she sighs, shifting uncomfortably in her seat, hands tightening in their hold atop her lap.

Margaery seems to notice the shift, straightening somewhat, interest piqued. She rests her hands along her armrests languidly, a finely-arched brow aimed Sansa's way. "Was it, now?" There's a devilish curve to her lips that Sansa thinks she should be wary of, but she's too caught in her remembrance of the night to notice.

She huffs her irritation. "Of course," Sansa presses on a heavy exhale, chin turned up. "To be so... so rude and brazen, in the midst of _everyone_ , and to the crown prince! To paw at me like some... some... _possession_. To touch me so in public." Sansa scoffs, her derision staining her tongue. "No, no, I did not enjoy that one bit." Her chest heaves, her hands wringing in her lap, tongue caught behind her clenched teeth.

Margaery merely peers at her.

She finds the look disconcerting, a hesitance washing over her when she looks at the Tyrell, suddenly small and unsure in her midst. "What?" she asks tentatively, barely trusting the word.

A slow, knowing smile slips across Margaery's lips, her hand reaching for Sansa's once more.

Sansa startles at the touch, but doesn't pull away. She glances down to their joined hands, finds her gaze fixed to Margaery's sun-touched hand as she swipes a comforting thumb along her knuckles once more.

"You know," she starts, the hint of a smirk playing at her lips, "It'd be okay if you did, Sansa."

Sansa only furrows her brows at the words, her confusion lighting her face.

Margaery's smirk goes full-blown. "If you enjoyed it, that is."

Sansa pulls her hand from hers, a sharp breath sucked through her lips. "Margaery!" she scolds, even as the smile touches her lips.

But the other woman only laughs, settling back along her chair. She takes a moment, smothering her chuckle behind a graceful hand. "Don't be so cruel to yourself, dear girl." Her smile grows fond, and then an abstract sort of sorrow lines her face, softening her beyond measure. "You don't have to love him," she says, hand tightening over Sansa's. "That's not what this is about."

Sansa sighs, her humor leaving her instantly, eyes drifting to their joined hands.

"We women deal with enough pain in this world without having to endure it from our husbands," she says solemnly, hand tightening over hers. "Take your pleasure where you can, Sansa. And do not be ashamed of it." Her eyes are fervent on hers, imploring, and Sansa feels her chest constricting beneath the look.

_Did you like it?_

Sansa thinks of the way he'd yanked her to him, the dark gaze he'd leveled Aegon with, the greedy press of his fingers along her ribs.

_Did you like it?_

Gods help her, but she did.

And nothing had scared her more.

* * *

Sex becomes perfunctory.

"I'll be gentler," he says on the second night, voice hesitant – the pale imitation of an apology, even in its sincerity – and Sansa fiddles with the tie of her robe, standing near the bed.

He's watching her from the threshold, his tunic already unlaced, and when she nods in response, a cool breath leaving her with the motion, he takes a breath, flexes his hands at his side, and then strides across the room toward her.

It begins anew.

They each know what is expected of them, after all.

When he eases into her this time, it's impossibly slower, a long, ragged breath leaving him, his jaw clenching at the effort. Beneath him, Sansa bites her lip, seizing up again, staring up at him in the dark, never looking away, and he has to glance down to her chest, the edge of her shift still adorning her, has to brace a hand along the bed at her head and still himself, let her adjust.

She reaches for his shoulder with a gentle squeeze, an indication to move, and Jon does.

Her legs fit around his hips easily now, her hands more sure at his shoulders. Every night, he still finds hazel oil at her folds when he sets himself to her entrance. Perhaps he is foolish in hoping to find otherwise. She doesn't jump like that first night anymore though, when he touches her between her thighs to line himself up.

He never touches more – knowing how unappreciated it is.

He never tries to kiss her either, and he thinks he hears the light breath of relief escape her lips when he drops his head to her shoulder instead, unable to bear her gaze any longer without wanting to crash his mouth to hers, to hike her thighs higher up his hips, to reach between her legs and ease some of that tension out with a wet thumb.

So, he braces his mouth to her shoulder, panting into her flesh, pumping into her with a steady, even pace that draws no whimpers but draws no winces either, and this he will have to be satisfied with.

Because if he cannot bring her pleasure than at least he can avoid bringing her pain.

He tries to make it good for her, in what little ways he can – always settles her with the pillow beneath her head, tries to massage the smooth flesh of her thighs when he's spreading her wide, manages to keep his teeth from catching along her collar bone with his ragged need, never drops atop her when he's finished, passes her the wet cloth from the bedside basin first and keeps his dark gaze turned from her when she's sopping up the seed spilling from her cunt with flushed cheeks and a still-heaving chest.

One night he swears he hears her breath hitch when he angles himself deeper, strokes inside her along a spot that has his eyes rolling back, her nails digging into his shoulder blades as her knees tighten at his waist. But when he finally looks down at her, her eyes are closed, her brow scrunched, as though she is trying to ride something out, and Jon thinks it must be pain.

He curses himself and draws back out, keeps to shallower thrusts, misses the curl of her nails along his back when her grip relinquishes him.

Another night she lets him cup her breast through her shift, his hand toying at the end of the fabric until she nods hesitantly, his rough palm closing around the mound unsurely, the sigh raking from him when he feels her heat beneath his touch, her heartbeat beating a rhythm against his palm, and he squeezes – gently. She arches imperceptibly, a sound curled in her throat, and she turns her head away. He barely contains his growl of impatience, dipping his head to her throat instead, lips latching to the skin there and palming at her through the shift, rutting until he spills, and her heartbeat never wanes, still frantic beneath his hand. He stays inside her for as long as he can get away with, pulling from her when she touches a delicate hand to his neck, the press of her fingers light enough to send him spinning, aching and desperate again.

He rolls from her with a hand raked through his curls, jaw clenching, his control like a taut string she plucks at precariously, unknowingly.

Because her every sigh he wants to drag out into a breathy moan, every rise of her chest he wants to bow into a delicious arch, every purse of her lips he wants to draw into a needy howl of his name.

To have her writhing beneath him, whining at his ear, coming apart for him with a splintered cry and her cunt clenching around his cock, to watch her break and crest and surge beneath his hands, to drive her to madness for him.

To draw it wildly from her – like a snarling wolf.

To sink his teeth in her and let her do the same.

To taste.

Sansa buries her face in his shoulder when he grunts his release atop her, a low curse panted in her hair, his fingers dug into the flesh of her hip.

She'll drive him mad soon, he knows.

She sleeps always with her back to him.

Jon takes to sparring with the eldest Stark often, a means of releasing some of the frustration he cannot release upon _her_ , and Robb offers little but a raised brow when he comes demanding his presence in the training yard with a scowl and a nod jerked in the opposite direction. Robb always follows with a laugh, and more than once, Jon has found himself panting ragged at the end of a fight, tugging the collar of his tunic open harshly, chest heaving, sweat matting his curls to his forehead, and his body's absolutely _thrumming_ , absolutely screaming beneath his skin, ready to rip and roar and -

And _fuck_.

Jon rakes a hand through his hair roughly, catching sight of Sansa at the edge of the training yard, gripping at the column she leans against, watching him with unblinking eyes.

He thinks he must be imagining the way she licks her lips, the way she bares her throat just so, the way her nails curl along the column.

(Because he can't be the only one – he just _can't_ be.

Even when every trembling line of her body is telling him otherwise.)

Jon frowns at her presence, mouth opening, but never getting the chance to speak.

"It's been a while since we've had a turn, brother. Shall we?"

Jon's gaze whips to Aegon coming up behind Robb, swinging a blade casually, the hilt rolling through his fingers with practiced ease.

Robb frowns at the motion, eyes alighting the blade. "Live steel, my lord?" he asks cautiously.

Jon bites his tongue.

And so, the punishment continues.

Aegon's eyes dance with violet exhilaration beneath the afternoon soon and Jon nods toward Robb, motioning for him to join his sister. "Step aside, Stark." It isn't said callously, but Robb seems to recognize the edge to it regardless. He joins Sansa at the edge of the yard without further word.

Jon sighs, catching the blade Aegon tosses his way, and the spar begins.

Aegon has always been exceptionally good with a blade, but Jon's always been better. He weaves around Aegon with surety, stepping lightly, letting his blade miss _just barely_ , letting Aegon's swings avoid him _just barely_.

It is a dance he learned the steps to long ago.

He is a well-kept bastard, after all.

Jon swings low – too low. And Aegon parries it easily, as he'd expected, knocking him back, and Jon stumbles a step, muscles tensing in anticipation, ready for the blow, as he turns his head just enough to miss the brunt of Aegon's responding swing, but not enough to miss the slice of the tip up his jaw, a thin arc of blood catching the air and Jon winces at the pain, a hand clamping over the wound when he stumbles back.

Aegon smiles triumphantly, blade stilled in an over-arch.

Sansa's gasp of "Jon!" has him nearly biting down on his tongue, and it takes all of him not to turn to her, a feral sort of need curling in his chest.

Aegon's blade tips into the dirt. "Well fought, brother." The words are accompanied by an appreciative nod, a narrowing of his eyes, fair skin glinting with a sheen of sweat that Aegon somehow manages to make look graceful rather than grimy.

Jon pulls his hand from his cut, collaring his glare, a tight swallow his only answer.

And then Sansa is at his elbow, one hand turning him in her grasp and the other reaching for his jaw. He pulls from her more harshly than he intends, but he doesn't think he can manage to bear her searching touch or her scrutinizing gaze this very moment.

Sansa retracts from him slowly, clearly hurt by the rejection of her touch.

Jon closes his eyes, breathes deep, opens his eyes on the exhale.

Aegon is standing with his hands behind his back, sword still held in his grip, head cocked toward Sansa. "Did you enjoy the match, my lady?"

Sansa opens her mouth, closes it, folds her hands demurely before her. "You are an exceptional swordsman, my lord," she says softly.

Jon's gaze snaps to her finally, watching the way she doesn't meet Aegon's eyes, her thumb rubbing over her knuckles in a motion of unease. He narrows his eyes at her.

"Well," Aegon begins, a light smack of his lips following the words, "With such a fair lady in the audience, I imagine it is any man's wish to prove their prowess." His smile branches out like a spill of rich wine, his head dipping down toward hers, voice lowering. "I admit, I am not immune to such powers, my lady," he says without faltering, eyes never leaving hers.

Jon glances to the side, fist already curling, tongue already tart with his rage.

"You're too kind," Sansa answers, and Jon feels her gaze on him, her figure a rigid line in his peripheral.

Jon presses his tongue to the roof of his mouth, holds it there, tries to drown out the rush of blood.

To rip and roar and _fuck_.

His hands burn for her – maybe especially so with Aegon eyeing her so intently.

But his brother only chuckles, glancing back to Jon. "You should tend to your husband, Lady Sansa." His voice goes hollow – a dead expel of air. The ends of his mouth ease down, his smile uncurling like smoke. "He's bleeding," he says, sharp and cursory.

Sansa's hand slips along Jon's elbow, curling along the crook of it. "I shall," she says evenly, no tremble to be heard.

Jon, however, is practically quaking with his fury.

It doesn't abate until Aegon is stalking from the courtyard, until Sansa is turning him in her hands for another look at his jaw, huffing at his reluctance, until he meets Robb's eyes over her shoulder, intent and watchful.

Until Sansa is tugging him from the yard and he's trailing after her skirts, mouth full of useless words, his hand clutched in hers.

Until the spot between her shoulder blades becomes a blur beneath his heavy stare.

Until he is too far gone to ever turn back now.

* * *

"Take off your tunic," she says, wringing out the cloth in the basin beside him. When he doesn't move to do so, Sansa glances over to him, finding him leaning with his elbows over his knees, a bemused brow quirked. She resists the urge to roll her eyes. "The blood will set if we don't clean it immediately," she explains, motioning to the splatter of blood along the collar.

Jon considers her a moment quietly, and then he's reaching along his back for the material, tugging it up and out of his breeches, over his broad shoulders and head. He bunches the tunic in his hands, holding it out to her expectantly, chest sweat-lined and sun-kissed.

Sansa keeps her gaze deliberately fixed to his as she grabs for the soiled garment, handing it off behind her to the waiting handmaid without breaking her stare. Her throat flexes tightly, and Jon seems to catch the motion, a slow, predatory smile tugging at his lips, half hidden in his beard.

Gods, but she can clearly see every sinewy cord of muscle she'd only ever seen before by candlelight.

The handmaid exits the rooms with the tunic swiftly, closing the door behind her, and then they are alone.

Jon leans back in his chair slowly, hands sliding over his thighs, shoulders pulled back as he watches her.

Sansa frowns at the deliberate display, reaching for his chin with perhaps a bit too much force and turning his head away from her. "We'll have to clean the cut," she gets out in a hoarse voice, dabbing the wet cloth to the wound.

Jon lets out an exasperated sigh, but does not fight her touch, letting her clean the thin cut down the length of his jaw. Sansa is focused, brow furrowed, swiping the blood clean that she can through his beard, dipping it back into the water, wringing it out, drawing it further and further down his jaw. She hardly notices the soft puff of his breaths or the way he watches her out of the corner of his eye, so intent on her task as she is. She cocks her head to see the underside of his jaw, to swipe at the blood drying there, tipping his chin in her delicate hold, and he acquiesces easily. But the light isn't good, and it's a bad angle from where she stands at the edge of his knees, so when she presses into them on instinct and he parts them for her, her skirts brushing along the inside of his thighs as she steps into the vee of his legs, she doesn't even note the shift, instead, taking advantage of the new position to better see the trail of blood drying along his throat.

She bends further, hair slipping over her shoulder, fingers perched beneath his jaw. Another swipe of the cloth. Slow and measured. Sansa watches the faint bob of his Adam's apple, the flex of sweat-soaked skin across his throat, and suddenly she remembers the way that throat had looked above her just the other night, with him braced atop her, driving into her with sure and steady thrusts. She remembers the clench of muscle along his neck when he'd spilled inside her.

Sansa's lips part, an unsteady breath leaving her. She's suddenly very aware of how close she stands to him, the steady rise and fall of his bare chest beneath her, how she need only lean a handful of breaths closer to bury her face against his neck. She presses harshly along the half-dried blood marring his jaw.

"You could have parried that last swing," she manages in a thin voice. She clears her throat, swallows back the quiver, hopes he doesn't notice it.

Jon doesn't answer her.

She frowns at the silence, wet cloth dipping along the edge of his collar bone now. She huffs. "Why didn't you?"

Jon takes a slow, deep breath, and Sansa can't help the way her eyes drift to the broad expanse of his muscled chest at the motion. She averts her eyes quickly.

And then he's reaching for the hair spilling over her shoulder, fingers snaking around the end of a softly curled tendril. Sansa stills with her hand at his throat, glancing at the gesture from the corner of her eye.

A sound brews in his throat, low and contemplative, his dark eyes fixed to the strand of copper between his fingers. "At our wedding feast," he begins, ignoring her question, "When you danced with my brother – were you not as upset with his familiarity as you were with mine?"

Sansa grips the cloth between white knuckles, drawing back enough to properly look at him. His hand at the edge of her hair keeps her from stepping back out of the space between his legs. She wonders if he intended it so. She stays resolutely silent.

A short, subtle quirk of his lip lights his face before it's gone. "Or did you welcome it?"

Sansa swallows tightly. "A lady must always be courteous."

Jon's gaze drops to her laced-in side, the fingertips of his free hand suddenly grazing the edge of her waist. His voice is low and breathy. "And your compliment on his swordsmanship? That was courtesy?"

Raising her chin, Sansa watches him with wary eyes. "A lady must also be conscious of her station."

Jon scoffs at the word 'station', his hand folding more surely around her waist, giving it the slightest tug so that she stumbles even closer, her hands going to his shoulders to steady herself. She sucks a sharp breath between her teeth at the jostle, watching as he gazes up at her, his face hovering just above her stomach. "A lady must be so many things," he mocks, his other hand curling tightly over the hair in his grip. "One has to wonder if she manages to ever be _herself_ amidst all that decorum."

She remembers his warning to curb her tongue, suddenly. She smarts beneath the hypocrisy. Sansa's chest tightens with her frustration, the air stalling in her throat. She stares down at him with an air of incredulity.

Jon's hand branches over her waist possessively. "Or have I simply married a pretty little doll? Easily filled with other people's opinions about what she should be?"

Sansa's eyes narrow so quickly he almost misses it, her jaw clenching beneath her ire. His responding smirk incites her more, and she's reaching over to the basin then, dropping the cloth back into the water unceremoniously. "I've watched my brothers sparring often enough back home to recognize a thrown match when I see one."

Jon's hand tightens over her waist, his mouth pursing up at her.

"If even I can see it, who else do you think has noticed?" she says sharply.

Jon untangles his fingers from her hair.

Sansa raises her chin, a tight breath drawn through her lungs. "I doubt Prince Aegon would care very much for you coddling him, were he to know." She moves to step back, but he reaches for her with both hands now, gripping at her hips, steadying her against him as he glares back up at her, eyes hooded and dark.

"You have a particular interest in what my brother cares for?" he intones darkly, fingers curling tight along her hips, bunching in the fabric of her dress.

She glares back just as intensely, trying to ignore the way his steady grip lights a heat even through her heavy skirts, his fingertips marring the curve of her hips with his imprint. A long, charged moment passes between them, with neither relenting, until finally, Sansa brushes a delicate hand to the cut at his jaw, eyes still steel, mouth still cut into a sharp frown. "I'll call Maester Gregor to stitch that for you." She doesn't acknowledge the quiver underlining the words – swallows them back quickly. Her hand falls from his face. "Have you any further need of me, husband?"

Jon grinds his teeth, still glaring up at her, a shadow passing over his face, and then gone. He releases her instantly, almost forcefully. "No," he says simply, gaze falling to the wayside.

She steps from his overwhelming presence immediately, pretending to miss the clench of his fists along his thighs when she does.

"My lord," she says, nodding in farewell, before turning for the door and never looking back.

* * *

Daenerys is pregnant.

They discover it when she doesn't arrive for breakfast one morning, Aegon striding into the room to his chair, hands resting along the back of it as he blinks dazedly at the table.

Rhaenys pulls the spoon from her mouth. "No Daenerys tonight? Is she ill again?" A worried furrow of her brow mars her features.

"I've just come from the maester," he says slowly, eyes drifting to his sister's. "She's with child." He releases the words on a heavy breath.

Sansa's mouth parts, her shock overcoming her for a moment, before she regains her manners, setting her napkin to the table with a warm smile. "That's wonderful news, my lord."

His gaze flicks to Sansa, settling on her a moment, before returning the smile with a lilt of his lips, an appreciative nod. "Thank you, Lady Sansa."

"How is she?" Rhaenys asks, spoon stilled over her grapefruit.

Sansa glances to the princess at the tender exhale of her words.

Aegon steps around his chair, settling a hand at the back of Rhaenys' head. "It is no more than the common sickness, they say. She is well." He offers her a reassuring smile, fragile and barely there.

The image is striking to Sansa.

Aegon's hand falls from Rhaenys' hair when she nods in answer, lips pressed into a concerned but warm smile.

"Congratulations, brother," Jon says beside her, voice gruff as he leans back in his seat. "It's what you wanted, isn't it?"

Aegon looks at him, then to Sansa, and then just as swiftly, back to Jon. "Yes," he says, "It is." A lick of his lips, hands returning to the back of his chair.

It's a decidedly delicate flicker of movement, nothing deliberate about it. It's almost...unnerving, in its fragility – the way Aegon's fingers curl around the back arch, the way his chest fills with his breath, lips turning up into a faint smile.

Sansa shifts in her seat, hands smoothing out over her thighs, before curling in her lap. She glances to Jon out of the corner of her eye. He's staring at his plate now, his hand curled into a loose fist along his armrest, and he's so close, she realizes suddenly. Close enough to touch.

Her hand moves to curl around his forearm, hovering hesitantly in the air, before retracting back to her lap. He takes no notice, and Sansa breathes deep, settling the roaring pit of her stomach.

 _To taste and touch and know each other_.

She sighs, eyes flicking back up toward Aegon. He's watching her steadily, and Sansa almost startles at the look. She flutters another encouraging smile toward the prince, throat tightening. "I'm sure you're very happy," she says.

Aegon cocks his head, a thoughtful purse to his lips. "I am, my lady."

Jon picks his fork and knife up beside her, cutting into his food with a single-minded focus. "The quail's getting cold."

Sansa turns to him, mouth open to scold his brusqueness, but she sees the tight clench of his jaw, and her mouth closes abruptly.

It isn't until later, when she's walking the gardens arm in arm with Margaery beneath a slowly waning sun, that she thinks on it again.

That stiffness in his jaw, the muscles of his arm flexing – all cold and callousness when he's bristling beneath something, and yes, she's become accustomed to his moods long enough to notice when he's bristling.

She wonders when that happened.

Maybe it's because she knows now, the gentle ease that can be found in his palms, the vulnerable quake that can be found in his breath, the decidedly _not_ cold and callousness of his gaze when she's spread beneath him, taut beneath his fingers like the chord of a harp.

Maybe it's because of the way he looks at her these days.

Maybe it's because she's starting to look back.

"Margaery," she says, clearing her throat.

The Tyrell cocks her head to listen, a quirk to her lip in answer.

Sansa's hand tightens along Margaery's elbow. "Do you think Aegon and Daenerys love each other?"

Margaery laughs, short and bright, tapping Sansa's hand affectionately as they continue their stroll. "I think there are many things those two feel for each other, but I cannot rightly say whether any of it is love." She offers an impish grin. "Why do you ask?"

Sansa's gaze turns toward the path, lips pursed. "I don't know. I think I just..." She sighs, shaking her head. "I suppose there must be something of love between them, indiscernible as it may be to others."

Margaery plucks a nearby low-hanging flower off the vine, twirling the short stem between her fingers as they continue. "Because they're expecting?" There's something incredulous to her tone. "Sansa, any beast can breed."

She's taken aback by the words, even as softly-crafted as they are, melodically spoken, no hint of malice.

(The image of Jon, sweat-lined and panting above her, streaks through her mind. Her stomach turns without warning.)

Sansa bites her lip. She thinks, instead, of the look Aegon had let flutter across his face, perhaps even without meaning to, earlier that morning.

More exposed than she's ever seen him, except perhaps during their dance at her wedding, his eyes sweeping out over the room for his salt-haired wife upon her question.

" _It is the wish of every marriage, is it not?"_

Sansa blinks back the memory, another one stealing swiftly behind it. Jon's breath fanning her lips, his chest hard-pressed to hers, a dangerous glint to his eye – how the heat of him had burned her to the bone when he took her in his arms across the dancefloor, even as her sharp tongue cut into him with a branding chastisement.

He'd only held her tighter, never relinquished his hold, let her rebuke him without interruption.

That heat hadn't dissipated until well into the night, long after he'd spent inside her for the first time, long after she laid awake staring up at the canopy, listening to his soft breaths behind her, wondering if sleep eluded him as well.

She thinks she should have turned to him then, broached the silence, reached for something tentative and shadowed between them – something to hold onto in the comfort of night, where they may be free to be 'Jon and Sansa' outside of 'husband and wife'.

(She hadn't though, in the end. She'd only pulled the sheets up to her chest and turned her face into the pillow, craven and lonely – but mostly –

Mostly, afraid.

Of herself, more than anything.)

"That's not it," she tells Margaery, brows furrowing, steps never stalling. She glances out across the gardens, catches sight of the fountain coming around the bend, the faint light of dusk glinting off the waters like a mirage. She keeps her silence for many moments, watching the soft splash of water as they glide past, her throat tight.

Margaery fondly taps her cheek with the flower, a cheerful motion, even when her voice goes solemn, hesitant. "Is this about you and Jon?"

Sansa gives her an exasperated look but Margaery is undaunted. She merely raises a brow, a pointed look thrown Sansa's way.

"Jon and I – we..." A heavy sigh, a one-shouldered shrug. "We're still learning each other."

Margaery gives her a sharp look, barely managing to keep the disappointment from her face.

If she thinks Sansa a coward, she kindly doesn't say so. It wouldn't matter, though.

Sansa already thinks herself coward enough.

She sighs again, brushing a tendril of hair from her face. "Gods, I'm pathetic."

Margaery stops then, her hold on Sansa halting her as well, and she turns fully to her, eyes searching hers, lips tipped into a pretty frown.

Sansa blinks at her, brows raising in question.

Margaery takes a breath, hand sliding down Sansa's arm to clasp along her own palm. "Do you think Daenerys happy?"

She blinks at the question, glancing down to their joined hands, and then back up. Margaery is staring at her intently, and Sansa finds herself growing hesitant under the gaze. She fumbles for her words. "I don't..."

"In your eyes, does she seem happy to you?"

Sansa clamps her mouth shut, the words stalling along her tongue. She takes a breath, shakes her head almost imperceptibly. "No," she manages, a soft expel of breath.

Margaery only nods, a gentle thumb grazing over her knuckles. "And do you really think a babe is going to change that?"

Sansa bites her lip, a sudden sorrow lighting her bones. She thinks of Daenerys' self-assured words and her perfect posture and her unabashed gaze, all exceedingly graceful, and yet... somehow empty.

It saddens something great in Sansa.

"No," she answers – truthfully.

Margaery looks at her a moment longer, contemplative. "A babe is not the highest aspiration of love, Sansa, no matter what your Septa told you," she scoffs gently.

Sansa opens her mouth –

"Nor should it be," Margaery continues, hand tightening over hers.

Sansa's mouth clamps shut, her brows furrowed.

"Duty is all well and good, Sansa, but will it keep you warm at night? Will it weather the years with you? Will it grow old and grey beside you?"

Her chest aches at the words, her eyes stinging suddenly. She lets out a rueful laugh, the sound catching in her throat. "Take my pleasure where I can?" she asks, repeating Margaery's earlier words with a sardonic smile.

The other woman only offers a comforting gaze, patting her hand once more before releasing it, winding her arm through hers and continuing their trek through the gardens. "Quite," she says succinctly, chin tipped high.

The light has grown dim across the gardens, and they turn back toward the keep in unison. Sansa considers the other woman a moment longer, before leaning into her, whispering almost conspiratorially, "Do you think pleasure can become love with time?"

Margaery mulls the question over, rolling the stem of the forgotten flower between the pads of her fingertips once more. "Perhaps. For some."

"And if it doesn't?"

"Then it is still pleasure," she says simply.

Sansa raises her brows at that, tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth.

It's not an untruth, really.

And what guarantee does Sansa have that her union with Jon will nurture love? What guarantee has she at all that he even wants the same?

Sansa looks ahead, steps light and even, hand crooked into the hollow of Margaery's elbow.

Wolves have never been craven things.

So why should she start now?

Sansa draws her back straight, eyes instinctively searching for the high window that is hers and Jon's bedchamber.

Yes.

She will take her pleasure where she can.

"Sansa, would you..." Margaery trails off, fingers clenching around the flower in her grasp, a nervous sort of tremor making her shake her hand out, tossing the flower to the wayside with a long look. She breathes deep, tucks her hand more surely into Sansa's arm. "Would you find it terribly improper of me if I asked to write your brother back at Winterfell?"

Sansa turns wide eyes to Margaery, but the other woman's staring intently ahead, cheeks deceptively unflushed in the growing shadows, a nonchalant sway to her walk that is entirely too contrived in Sansa's eyes.

She smiles devilishly. "Well, I don't think he'd particularly appreciate letters from a strange woman, even one of such a noble house."

Margaery glances at her, brows raised, mouth parted with no sound coming out.

Sansa can hardly contain her giggle. "Though my brother Rickon is too sweet to tell you such himself," she teases.

Margaery stops, mouth gaping, and then a laugh breaks from her, a hand swatting at Sansa's arm good-naturedly. "Sansa, you terrible thing, I meant _Robb_ ," she near shrieks in laughter.

"Oh, _Robb,_ is it? _Just_ Robb? Not 'Lord Robb'? So intimate already?" Sansa cannot curb her smirk as she watches Margaery huff.

"You're teasing me."

"And rightfully so." Sansa beams.

Margaery tuts dramatically. "I find this friendship terribly one-sided, Lady Sansa. I am _aghast_ at your insensitivity to my plight."

"Oh, how unladylike of me."

Margaery nuzzles at her cheek, laughing.

Sansa can hardly imagine why such a self-possessed woman would need her approval or opinion, but she is glad to give it, nonetheless. She clutches at Margaery's arm, keeping her close, smile never breaking from her face. It's a meaningful look she gives her, a warmth blossoming in her chest. "Take your pleasure where you can, Margaery," she says.

Margaery presses a swift, full kiss to her temple, smile etched against her skin, hand braced to the back of her head. "Then I shall," she whispers gleefully.

Sansa shakes her head at her, pulling back slightly. "Though I do imagine Robb is like to be the one to write first. Horrendous restraint, that one."

Margaery's laugh fills the night air.

Sansa is warm all the way back to her room.

* * *

Sansa sits at her vanity table, turning the vial of hazel oil over in her hand. She glances back up to her reflection in the mirror, braid undone over her shoulder, the thin silk robe parted over her white shift, the faint outline of her breasts barely visible in the flicker of candlelight atop the vanity.

And this is what Jon sees each night before they go to bed.

Sansa sighs, placing the vial back on the table top.

 _Do not be ashamed of it_ , she tells herself, repeating Margaery's words like a mantra. But she doesn't quite understand how it works without it.

She closes her eyes, thinks back to that first night he'd slid his fingers up her folds, and the jolt that shot through her at the touch. She curls her fingers around the edge of her shift at her thighs.

Maybe it all starts there.

Her knees part hesitantly, her eyes still fluttered closed, drawing the hem of her shift up her thighs, settling it at her hips. Taking a long, slow breath, feeling the tightness pricking at her chest, she trails a finger over the sensitive flesh of her inner thigh, dipping down between her legs.

She imagines spreading her legs for him, the warm, rough pressure of his palms urging her thighs apart, settling his weight in the cradle of her hips.

A shuddering sigh escapes her parted lips. Her hand presses against her clothed cunt, a sharp drop in her gut jerking her hips unconsciously at the motion. She snaps her eyes open.

Her image in the mirror is the most scandalous Sansa has ever seen, thighs parted eagerly, shift bunched up at the waist, chest already heaving, cheeks flushed, and then there – _there –_ her cunt pushing toward the pressure of her palm, fingers curling down over her smallclothes. She gasps at the image, her hand retracting, and she brushes something – _gods,_ something wonderful, a shudder racking her, a soft moan caught between her teeth, surprising herself, and before she even knows what she's doing, her hand is returning, seeking that spark, that surge, fingers more sure now, pressing over her smallclothes for something – for –

"Ah!" Sansa whimpers, hips jerking, fingers finding home. She rubs at the soft nub through her smallclothes again, feeling the dampness, head lolling back, hips bucking up into her own tentative touch, and another moan makes it past her clenched teeth, nearly loud enough to cover the sound of the door unlatching, but not quite, and Sansa rips her hand from between her legs, fumbling to replace her shift, smoothing her breath out, feeling that clench in her cunt even now, aching and eager, and she bites down on her lip to keep from trembling just when Jon stalks through the door.

Her eyes catch along his in the mirror when he stops short, the door slipping closed behind him.

For the horrifying stretch of an instant, Sansa thinks she's been caught out.

Her mortification is almost enough to drown out her arousal.

(Almost, but not quite.)

Jon's brow furrows as he steps toward her. "Are you well, my lady?"

Sansa releases a forced chuckle, a practiced scoff. "I'm still unused to this heat," she says, brushing the hair from her shoulders, hoping the light sheen of sweat at her brow is not construed otherwise, nor the faint flush of her cheeks she still catches in the reflection.

Jon stares at her a moment, considering, before nodding silently, seeming to accept her answer, and then making his way to the bed. He sits along the edge and goes to remove his boots.

Sansa feels the air rake from her chest in faint relief. Her body is still wound tight, her skin thrumming, heat lancing through her, and she watches Jon undress in the reflection of the mirror, hands curled over her knees in anticipation, lip caught between her teeth.

He's down to his sleeping tunic when he sits back along the edge of the bed again, his back to her, a heavy sigh leaving him.

Sansa stands with a surety she hasn't felt in many moons. She makes her way to the bed, settling along the opposite edge. In her peripheral, she can see the vial of hazel oil still lingering atop her vanity – untouched.

It will be the only thing untouched tonight, she promises.

With trembling fingers, she begins to slip the robe from her shoulders. It flutters to the furs just as Jon's voice hits the air.

"Forgive me, my lady, but I – I think I've had the wrong of it all this time."

Sansa stills, hands curled along the material of her robe, ready to drag it from the bed, her gaze flicking over her shoulder toward him.

His back is still to her, his hands hung between his knees as his elbows rest along his thighs.

She licks her lips, shifts to pull a knee up along the bed, angled toward him. "My lord?"

Another sigh racks him, and he's rubbing his face then.

Sansa's chest tightens inexplicably.

Jon straightens finally, turning so that he can meet her gaze across the bed. "When you said you wanted to be a proper wife."

Her mouth opens, words ready along her tongue, but the look in his eye stops her.

They stay staring at each other across the bed, half-turned with their backs to each other, half-leaning into the other's words.

And then Jon offers a rueful chuckle. "You wanted civility, not affection."

She thinks she means to say something, she _must_ , she surely will but... but the words lay dying in her throat. She swallows them back like turned wine.

"But I'm a bastard," he says, gaze falling to the bed. "And it seems I exceed at neither." A light quirk of his lip, the curl of his fingers in the furs, fist white-knuckled and stiff.

Her gaze stays rooted to that fist, chest rising slowly and steadily. Her throat is dry, her tongue heavy. She does not meet his eyes.

"I apologize, my lady," he says now, turning from her fully, back a curved line, like a scream.

Or a howl.

Sansa blinks back the imagine, eyes stinging uncontrollably. She shifts over the bed toward him, hand outreaching. "Jon - "

"We should get some rest." He goes to put out the bedside candle, dousing their room in darkness.

Sansa can still follow his outline in the dark, still make out his form in shadow. She has grown used to the shape of him, the weight of him. She has learned to find him in the absence of light.

"Jon, please, I – "

"It's okay, Sansa," he says lowly, already turning under the covers, gaze fixing to the canopy of the bed. "Duty can take a night's respite."

Sansa curls her lip back in a trembling grimace, hand bunching in the furs, that sting at her eyes a sudden, wet sheen. She blinks back the tears in the cover of darkness, grabbing for her ends of the furs. She shuffles into her side of the bed, curling on her side, watching him.

He takes a breath in, heaves it back out.

Sansa curls her fist beneath her chin, huddled in the furs. "I don't think you exceed at neither," she says softly, watching him in the night.

He makes no move to turn to her, but she can see his eyes searching the dark – skyward, unfixed.

She almost reaches for him.

But instead, her hand stays bunched in the furs beneath her chin until sleep takes her, Jon's outline painted in shadow against the backs of her lids.

* * *

Jon wakes groggily to a noise at his ear, the film of night still dowsing him, sleep still fogging his mind. He blinks in the darkness, a grumble lighting in his chest. He's laying on his back, a warmth at his side, a steady rocking. Another sound at his ear – low and breathy.

Jon stills.

He blinks again, quickly, a hand rubbing at his eyes, straining to see through the shadows as he turns his gaze to Sansa beside him, half-draped over him. She's on her stomach, one of her legs thrown over his, fist bunched in the sheets at her cheek, her warm center pressing into his thigh and she's – she's –

Jon's throat goes dry.

Sansa rocks into him in her sleep, slow and even, rubbing herself against his thigh. Even through his breeches and her rucked up shift, he can feel the throbbing heat of her, her cunt damp against him. Another sigh leaves her, and Jon's gaze snaps up to her face, watching her lashes flutter in her sleep, her mouth pursing tight. He takes a moment, blinking wildly at her, jarred by the sight of her. And then he shifts just slightly beneath her, pressing his thigh more firmly against her.

The soft moan that leaves her has the blood rushing to his cock instantly. His mouth drops open as he watches her. Another rock of her hips against him, a keening sound in the back of her throat, and Jon's breath comes quicker, his thigh pushing against her cunt on each intoxicating grind.

He can feel his growing hardness pressing into the thigh she has between his legs and he shifts slightly on his side to better fit into her rocking. His eyes never leave the enthralling expression on her face, watching the scrunch of her brows, the purse of her lips, the pale column of her throat flexing as she strains in her sleep, drawing closer to him, back arching as she grinds against him, and she's wet, Jon finds, so unbelievably wet, and his mouth goes slack, his breath hitching, a maddening haze overtaking him, and he grabs at her thigh before he can stop himself, fingers inching up past her bunched shift, fixing to her hip. His fingers dig into her flesh, dragging her into him, grinding her against the hard muscle of his thigh, eyes fixed to the look of rapture on her sleep-touched features. His hand reaches further, encouraged by her breathy moans, grabbing at her ass and dragging her harshly against him, pressing his cock into her hip as his thigh wedges further between her legs, pressed up against her slick cunt, that sodden, intoxicating heat of her, grinding her against him, and the chest-rattling groan rakes from him before he manages to bite it back.

Sansa stills.

Jon's breath stalls in his throat and he stills as well, blinking deliriously at her in the dark, hard and aching at her hip, fingers digging into her flesh.

Her lashes flutter, her fist uncurling in the sheet beneath her, eyes lifting in a sleepy daze to catch brilliantly along his. Her breathing is short and shallow, her body stretched taut, a line of precarious rigidity. She blinks at him, her eyes focusing in the dark.

Jon barely breathes. They lay staring at each other, chests heaving, legs entangled. He watches the light of recognition in her eyes, even amongst the shadows, the flicker of a tremble at her lips, her tight swallow as she fixes him with a wide-eyed stare.

And just when he's about to release her, to draw back, to turn from her in heated shame and attempt to will his straining erection down, curled as far away from her on the bed as he can be – he catches the tentative shift of her thigh against him.

Her mouth parts, her breath hitching, and he doesn't dare move. She's still staring at him when she shifts again, this time just as hesitant, but it's a shallow rock of her hips rather than the simple press of her thigh.

Jon sucks a breath between his teeth, fingers tightening over her hip.

She seems to catch the reaction, because then she's biting her lip, brows drawn down in concentration, eyes never leaving his when she rolls her hips very purposely, very surely against his thigh now, a thready moan building in her throat.

Jon's control snaps. He grips at her thigh, pulling it from between his legs, ignoring her delicate whimper at the loss and shifting her so that her leg is swung over his hip instead, angling them so he's on his side fully, pressed into her, his other thigh braced at her center now. She sighs at the return of the pressure, an instinctual roll of her hips meeting him when he presses more forcefully into her. Her eyes go hooded, fixing to his mouth, the hand that was bunched in the sheets reaching tentatively toward his hip, anchoring there to steady herself against his thrusts. Even in the dark, he thinks he can see the pinks of her cheeks at the motion, at the steady rock of their hips, her cunt rubbing incessantly at his thigh through their clothes, and the thought has him impossibly harder, groaning in the space between their panting mouths.

"That's it," he tells her, voice gravelly from sleep and desire, hand guiding her hip against him. Watching her chase her pleasure like this, her cunt soaking him through his breeches, her chest heaving, her lip swollen and plump beneath her teeth, eyes hooded and fixed to his – it has him near on delirious. "That's it, Sansa, just like that," he grinds out.

She moans so prettily at his guidance that the sound staggers the breath in his chest. He ruts into her mindlessly, watching her face screw tight. His hand leaves her hip and fumbles for her shift, tugging the sleeveless thing past her shoulder, almost baring a breast entirely when he stops his frantic tugging, glancing back up at her, eyes boring into hers. She nods fervently, never stopping her grind against his thigh or her enticing mewls. Jon doesn't wait for a second confirmation, yanking the material down, breath catching when a perfect, pale breast spills out, nipple a dusky pink and pebbled to hardness. He cups her eagerly, groaning at the responding sigh that leaves her. He palms at her breast as she rubs herself more fiercely at his thigh, her hand curling tight at his hip.

Jon licks his lips, hungry, aching for a taste of her, growling impatiently as he dips his head down and takes her nipple between his lips, lapping at her, sucking eagerly. Sansa cries out, arching into him, panting above him.

"Fuck," he groans into her skin, teeth catching at her nipple, relishing the tremble that racks through her. His hand returns to her ass, hauling her against him, rutting shamelessly against her still-clothed cunt like a green boy. Jon imagines the slick heat of her, that tight cunt sheathed around his cock, so absolutely _drenched_ for him, as he fucks her senseless, burying himself deep inside her again and again. He clamps down on her nipple, tongue swirling over the pebbled flesh, moaning with her in his mouth, sucking her harder.

"Jon," she gasps sharply, and the sound of his name in her breathless voice has him quaking, so painfully hard against her, wedging his thigh up, grinding her against the lean muscle of his leg, mouth releasing her breast on a needy growl.

"Come on, Sansa, just like that," he grunts. " _Harder_. Yes – fuck, just like that." His teeth catch at her collar bone, his tongue lashing at her sweat-slicked skin. "I want to feel that hot, wet cunt rutting against me. Want to hear you moan with me between your legs."

And she does moan – _loudly_ – at his urging, grinding wantonly against him now, nails digging into his hip. Her eyes screw shut and Jon pulls back just enough to watch her, just enough to catch the disarming scrunch of her features as she chases her high, whining low in the back of her throat, pressed nearly flush up against him. "I want to see you cum for me, Sansa," he groans out, gaze fixed to her, breathless, and she cries out sharply, shuddering against him, wet and throbbing at his thigh, fingers like talons at his hip, face screwed tight, and it's the most erotic thing he's ever seen, the pleasure crashing through her. He's spilling instantly, vision going white, grunting into her shoulder as his hips jerk painfully, the force of the hardest orgasm he's ever had washing through him in waves and waves and waves.

It seems an age before he's able to regain his breathing, his thoughts.

"I've got you," he mutters, voice coarse, rocking into her languidly, steadily, drawing her close. Her hand edges up from his hip, gripping at his tunic, an anchor. She's trembling, her chest heaving, her mouth at his ear. "I've got you," he says again, swallowing thickly, ignoring the sticky mess his seed has made in his breeches, against her shift.

Like a fucking green boy.

Jon sighs, biting back a curse.

(Too far gone to ever turn back now.)

Sansa's fist doesn't unfurl from his chest until sleep well and truly claims her.

"I've got you," he breathes into her hair, ragged – taken by the sight of her.

Taken – wholly and recklessly.

"I've got you."


	8. Beasts and Bastards

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It is easy to fuck Jon Targaryen, she finally lets herself admit. It is an altogether different matter to love him.” - Jon and Sansa. Like the curve of the horizon, when the moon breaks from beneath its bow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few notes:
> 
> 1\. As of right now, I am still working full time. In fact, I'm working _more_ than full time. With current work weeks averaging 50-65 hours, ya girl is exhausted. That may change any day now. I don't know. I just thought I'd let you all know because that may affect my updating schedule, as you've clearly seen with how long this particular chapter has taken. I appreciate your patience and support in this. I know the world has gone a little mad, but please be safe. Be kind to each other. You are far more resilient than you think.
> 
> 2\. That being said, this chapter is long as fuck so you're welcome.
> 
> 3\. I'm not apologizing for Jon's dirty mouth.

Disclaimer: I own nothing, I make no money.

From Instep to Heel

Chapter Eight: Beasts and Bastards

" _It is easy to fuck Jon Targaryen, she finally lets herself admit. It is an altogether different matter to love him."_ \- Jon and Sansa. Like the curve of the horizon, when the moon breaks from beneath its bow.

* * *

Sansa stirs atop the sun-warmed sheets, curled on her side, blinking groggily as light filters in through the painted glass windows just past the edge of the bed. She sighs, still coming back to consciousness – warm and rested and limbs stretching taut.

It comes to her like muscle memory.

Sansa registers the heavy breath at the back of her neck the same moment she registers the arm around her waist, the chest pressed at her back, the thigh wedged partly between her legs.

Jon grumbles behind her, nose buried in her hair, and Sansa remembers that voice suddenly – graveled with need, pained with barely restrained desire, urging her on, guiding her, slipping filthy whispers into the space between their mouths -

" _I want to see you cum for me, Sansa."_

Oh, and how she had.

Sansa blushes at the memory, at the way she'd rubbed herself so shamelessly against him, clutched at his hip for purchase, arched into him when his hand rounded her bottom and dragged her against his cock – hard and aching at her hip.

The way she'd thrilled at the feel of him – his blatant, feral need – how heady and powerful it felt to know that _she_ had done that. And with nothing more than a base, wanton grind – rutting like a bitch in heat, like an animal.

(His mouth at her breast, the groan he'd stained her skin with when he took her between his teeth.)

Sansa's mouth parts, her breath hitching, and somewhere behind her sounds a familiar moan, rumbling and deep, exhaled against the back of her neck. He rocks into her, presses his hardening cock to her ass, and Sansa realizes belatedly that her hips have been undulating of their own accord, rolling slow and languid as she let her memory take her.

"Sansa," Jon growls into her skin, his breath hot at the nape of her neck, a barely-there scrape of teeth catching along the juncture where shoulder meets neck, and she's awash with heat again, skin tingling beneath his mouth, back arching.

All of a sudden, she's jarringly aware of her state of undress, glimpses of the previous night coming back to her in feverish touches – how she had torn the sweat-lined shift from her body and made her way to the wash basin, feeling Jon's eyes on her all the while. The way he had done the same himself, stripping off his breeches, the clear stain of his desire lighting something heady and intoxicating within her. An indescribable quiet had overtaken them, an unspoken, almost mechanical way to their motions as they cleaned themselves in turn, retreating back to sleep without a single word uttered. She had watched him prowl back to the bed in the cover of darkness after she'd slipped between the sheets herself, able only to discern his faint outline, before she'd curled beneath the covers and let a trembling breath through her lips, eyes squeezed shut at the hesitant curl of his hand along her hip when he settled behind her.

Now, Jon's hand splays out over her stomach, pressing her firmly back against him, his mouth dragging over the space between her shoulder blades, thigh wedging further between her legs.

He mouths her name again, splashing it across the gooseflesh of her back, painting her with his trembling, hazy need.

Sansa licks her lips, swallows tightly, shuts her eyes when she makes her move – decidedly unrepentant. Her hips roll back once more, sharp and purposeful, grinding back against him.

Jon sucks a sharp breath through his teeth, rocking forward to meet her, hand dragging back to settle along her hip. His fingers clench around the soft flesh like a vice. " _Fuck_ ," he seethes at her ear, hot breath washing over her. Another groan sounds close to her jaw as he strains against her, his fingers digging into her hip, grinding her back along his cock eagerly. "Gods, but you feel so good."

"Jon," she whimpers, breathless, and it sounds so needy to her ears, so shameless.

Part of her is glad to not be facing him, so that he cannot see the way she bites her lip, or scrunches her brows, or pants heatedly.

So that he cannot see how utterly shaken she is.

No.

Shut your eyes. Take a breath. Keep yourself from drowning.

Sansa tries. She truly does.

"I'm here," he says, lips planted at her shoulder, his touch firm – grounded – and just like that -

She lets it take her.

"Please," she mewls, arching back against him, one hand clutching at the pillow beneath her head, the other bunching in the sheets at her chest.

He grunts behind her, hips jerking against hers, breath catching at the breathy plead that leaves her lips.

"I've got you," he says again, just as sure and heated as the night before, and Sansa expects to feel his hand cupping her breast again, rolling her nipple between thumb and forefinger, squeezing her, palming her roughly, and she moans at the thought, already arching her chest out, already impatient for the touch.

Instead, she swallows a startled yelp when he trails his hand down to her cunt, fingers ghosting over the tops of her thighs – a light, thigh-quaking graze of his fingertips that has her legs partly instinctively. He groans at her eagerness, fingers slipping between her folds easily, finding her already slick with need. His hips buck against her, a shuddering breath leaving him.

"Fuck, Sansa, you're so wet for me," he mumbles into her neck, nipping at the flesh there, tongue laving over the spot with a trembling moan.

Sansa's cheeks flush, her thighs clenching around his hand. "Is that...is that good?" she manages through her haze, anxious and thrilled and light-headed.

"Mmm," he rumbles appreciatively, fingers gliding over her wetness, "Very good."

Sansa pulls her lip back between her teeth, whimpering at the words, feeling her hips rolling into his hand instinctively.

Jon bites off a growl, rocking into her again, his fingers sliding further down her slit, stopping tentatively at her entrance, his thumb gliding over her clit with the motion. Sansa's entire body jolts beneath the whisper of his touch along her nub.

She stills in his hold, teetering at the brink, lungs tight in her chest – ready for the fall. She clutches at his arm, tongue caught between her teeth.

Jon exhales – spent and ragged – against her neck. His thumb flicks over her nub again, once – short and sharp.

Sansa keens beneath the touch, fingers clenching over his wrist. Another swipe of his thumb, purposeful now, his chest heaving at her back, his mouth braced at her shoulder, and her choked-off gasp is wet in response. He slips a finger inside her, slow and tentative, thumb circling against her clit as he does. The moan that claws from her throat is unbearably loud in the room, her legs spreading wider, cunt chasing his touch, breathless and aching and soaking his fingers thoroughly. He slides out, slides back in – excruciatingly slow.

" _Jon_ ," she whines, head lolling back.

He slips a second finger alongside the first, and her hand spasms along his arm, nails digging into his flesh, clutching him to her cunt with a sharp inhale.

"Gods, but I want to fuck you, Sansa," he rumbles at her ear, pumping his fingers in and out of her, slowly drenching his hand well past his knuckles, her cunt slick and gushing around him, his thumb rubbing over her clit in a steady rhythm.

Sansa gasps at the words, but her hand only curls tighter around his wrist, keeping him buried inside her, and then she feels the hot press of his cock against her folds from behind, sliding back and forth tentatively, and she arches toward him without questioning it, moaning at the sensitive brush of his length just at her center.

Jon's fingers slide out of her, the slick sound startlingly erotic, and she keens at the absence, settling only somewhat at the return of his thumb to her clit, sliding over her easily now, absolutely covered in her slick.

Jon's teeth graze her ear, his wet pants splashing over her skin when he moans, "Will you let me fuck you, Sansa?" He accompanies the breathy request with a graze of his cock against her soaking cunt, a roll of his thumb along her nub. "I promise to fuck you good and slow," he lets out on a rumble. Another nip at her throat, the tip of his cock pressed up against her entrance, the pressure of his hand pushing her cunt back and toward him, meeting his hips with an arch of her own.

She knows she should be appalled at his filthy whispers, aghast at his coarse, sinful language, but at this very moment she can't find it in herself to care. Sansa's chest heaves, her legs trembling, nails curled along his arm.

"Let me fuck you right," he says at her ear, tongue darting out to press against the skin there, the words sounding faintly like a plea.

Sansa bites her lip, nods almost imperceptibly. She lets the breath rake from her in one, single rush. "Yes," she says, and her head lolls back, her legs jerking as his hand wraps around her hip again for purchase, and she's already starting to turn at the pressure, expecting to resume her place braced back along the bed, Jon crawling atop her, when instead he pushes inside her from behind – slow and measured, drawing a strangled sound of surprise from her that eases into a shamelessly long moan.

Jon drops his head to the space between her shoulder blades, a shuddering groan leaving him, stilling inside her as he shifts their hips, hand trailing down from her hip along her thigh to hoist her leg higher, spread her further so he can bury himself deep. Sansa whimpers at the feeling, stomach tightening, mouth parting beneath a soundless gasp as her tongue presses to the roof of her mouth, trying in vain to silence her moans. She winces slightly when he pulls nearly out, suddenly empty of him, keening and needful and wet, before he plunges back in, filling her to the brim, their combined moans puncturing the air.

"Oh...nngh, oh gods," she says, unable to manage more, fingers clenching in the sheets beneath her, arching against him when he slides out again, easing back in with a slow, full thrust, grunting each time he fills her, his breath ragged at her neck, his fingers bruising on her thigh as he keeps her stretched wide for him, and her leg begins to ache at the steady pace he sets, muscles bunching tight. "Jon, I can't - "

But he seems to understand instinctively, growling at her ear, lips trailing down past her shoulder when he shifts lower, releasing her thigh to instead hook underneath it, cradling her thigh over his forearm, shoving her legs further apart as his fingers return to her cunt, pinching at her clit, sliding over her wetness as he continues to plunge inside her, and Sansa can't imagine what she must look like in this moment, spread wide for him, his arm caught between her legs as his fingers drive her to completion, his cock buried deep inside her with every thrust, sheathed to the hilt, rocking her hard and slow, her breasts pushed out as she arches against him, mouth tipping open, cry dragging from her when she cums, and she grips his hand to her, gushing over him, his fingers incessant at her nub, clenching tight around his cock as he drives into her once, twice, three more times, before he's stilling against her, groaning deep and low with his mouth at her shoulder blade when he spills inside her, jerking beneath the waves of pleasure, a pool of wetness seeping into the sheets beneath them when he pulls out finally, his hand dragging from her.

Sansa whines at the sensitivity, missing the touch already, leg dropping back unceremoniously as she tries to catch her breath, chest heaving when she leans back onto him, her hand reaching behind her to brace along his neck.

Jon pants at her ear, caught somewhat beneath her body as they both drop down along their backs. A low rumble of contentment brews in his chest when her fingers curl into the hair at the nape of his neck, holding him to her, her eyes shut to the light and the heavy air and the pulse still lingering between her legs.

Like a heartbeat.

Jon's hand winds familiarly around her hip, rocking her back into him, but it isn't with the needy, lust-filled grind that had overtaken them moments ago. No. This time it's languid, almost unconscious, infinitely tender, especially when his hand trails from her hip to the low curve of her stomach, anchoring there as though loathe to part from her.

She swallows tightly at the touch, still panting lowly, and she is grateful to not be facing him for an altogether more intimate reason now.

"I didn't..." She stops, licks her lips, tries again. "I didn't know it could feel like that" she says, still breathless.

Jon chuckles, bracing his mouth to the curve of her shoulder. Her fingers tighten in his hair, keeping him pressed to her. "Of course it can," he says lowly, mouthing at her shoulder, a relaxed, open-mouthed kiss pressed to the trembling flesh there. "And...it can be so much more," he promises.

Her tongue presses to the back of her teeth, considering. Her fingers loosen in their hold somewhat. "If...?" The word is a tremulous inhale.

His lips still in their worship. "If you want it."

Her hand retracts from him, curling into the sheets beneath her when she draws them to her chest.

"If you let me be your husband," he whispers at her jaw, tugging her more firmly to him, curling around her form like a promise, "In all the ways I wish to be."

Sansa's eyes flutter shut, her jaw quaking. It is too much – this urge to reach for him, to thread her fingers along his at her stomach, to hold him to her.

She bunches her fists in the sheet instead, drawing a steadying breath in. She nods her answer, the air spilling from her in a trembling exhale. "I want it," she says.

Jon's sigh of appreciation sounds at her ear, his nose buried in her hair suddenly, his arm locked tight around her, and Sansa imagines their curved forms atop the bed much like a horizon, sunlight trailing from the windows beside them, hovering always at the edge –

Never eclipsing

* * *

"Are you well, Sansa?" Robb asks her sometime during their walk.

Sansa blinks out of her thoughts, glancing up at him beside her. "Oh, yes, yes I'm - I'm fine."

He gives her an incredulous look. "You know, you were never a great liar, Sansa."

Sansa heaves as ladylike a sigh as she can, tugging him along beside her. "Perhaps it's not something I wish to share," she says impishly, offering a teasing smile, hoping it will abate his concern well enough.

Robb eyes her suspiciously, continuing their walk along the ramparts of the keep, the sun high in the sky, the whole of King's Landing stretched out beneath them. "Is it Jon?"

" _Prince_ Jon," she corrects him, unused to the familiarity that's since sprung up between them.

Robb rolls his eyes. "Aye, _Prince_ Jon."

Sansa shakes her head at him, an amused smile toying at her lips. She looks off over the stone ramparts, hand cradled in his elbow.

It is not enough to deter him, it seems.

"Sansa."

She sighs again, this time sharper, a tug at her lungs, eyes roving over the city. "Jon is..." She bites her lip, keeps her gaze resolutely from her brother.

Robb runs his free hand through his hair, brow drown down in concern. "Not the prince you imagined?"

She glances to him, watches the way the blaring sun glints like fire off his hair. That blood-red hair. "Is any of this like we imagined?" she asks softly.

Robb purses his lips, looking ahead as they walk.

Sansa thrums her fingers along his arm in thought, gaze returning to the city beneath them. "He is, perhaps, inelegant at times, but I feel he has – " She stops, tries to find the words, huffs over their inadequacy. "I think he is a man of deep feeling."

Robb hums a sound of acknowledgement.

It pricks at her chest, this unfamiliar tether – like a taut string. Wound and wound between them. Just a flick away from snapping.

And yet, heavy as an anchor.

Sansa's brows furrow, her other hand curling around Robb's elbow now, holding him to her. "I hardly know what he's thinking half the time. And the other half, I'm wishing I never will."

Robb stays silent beside her.

"Is it supposed to feel that way?"

He glances at her. "What?"

"Love. Or marriage. Or whatever it is that's supposed to reside between us now." Sansa bites her lip again, lost in remembrance. "Is it supposed to feel that way?"

Robb's face softens, his hand curling over hers as it rests in the crook of his arm. "I couldn't rightly say."

A thought lights Sansa's mind just then, her lips curving into a secretive smile as she eyes Robb out of the corner of her eye. "You've never been in love, brother?"

Robb straightens at the question, decidedly not looking at her. "Again, I – I couldn't rightly say."

"Come now, brother, let's not keep secrets, shall we?" Sansa pries with a wicked smile.

Robb swallows tightly, offering her a sharp look. "Sansa."

"It seems very much like love when you look at Lady Margaery," she teases.

Robb laughs then, cheeks red, stopping them in their walk. "Oh, is that what it looks like?" He pinches her side playfully, and she yelps in response, her own laugh bubbling forth, backing out of his reach when he tries for her waist again, and she's pushing at his chest in surrender, eyes bright, laugh full. "I yield, I yield, brother!"

Robb narrows his eyes at her, grin tugging at his lips. "And what do you know of love, sister?"

The question halts something in her chest, her eyes blinking wildly up at him, and he seems to recognize the misstep half a second after he speaks it.

She's smiling up at him quickly enough though, covering any quiver of her lip, any sharp blink of her gaze. "I am learning," she says, voice soft but firm.

Robb clears his throat, hand falling from her waist. He looks off down the walkway, the long stretch of the keep's ramparts like a sun-lit path, all red and bronze stone in the blaring light. A heavy sigh leaves him, his shoulders slumping with the sound. "Sansa, if you – if you were..." He cannot seem to finish the thought.

Sansa steps into him, hands going to his cheeks, cradling his face in her touch. He looks at her finally. She offers him a comforting gaze. "We are the eldest of House Stark. We marry for duty – so that our younger siblings may yet marry for love. It is not something I regret."

Robb grabs for her wrists, holding her hands to his face, gaze strikingly blue on hers. An ardent kind of blue.

She will miss it when it goes.

"But Sansa, if I – if I should – " He bites off the words. Hangs his head.

Sansa urges him to meet her gaze once more. "What is it, Robb?"

Closing his eyes, Robb lets out a slow, ragged breath. He takes a moment, winds his hands more surely around her wrists, opens his eyes to hers. "What if I want to marry for love?"

Sansa brushes her thumbs over his cheeks, eyes alighting the motion. She doesn't admit to the pang of resentment that lights in her chest at the words. "If the match you seek is the one I imagine, then perhaps you may yet satisfy both."

Robb hangs his head, a heavy breath leaving him. "A union with House Tyrell would prove invaluable to the North."

Sansa clenches her jaw, hands sliding from his face. She offers a terse nod. "It would,"

Robb sighs, rubbing a hand down his mouth. He stalks away to the other side of the ramparts. Stalks back. "Sansa, I... I _want_ it. I think I may – " He stops then, watches her with a hard, steady gaze, takes her hands in his and looks down on them with a fervent, needful look. "Gods, but do you think less of me for it?"

Sansa blinks at him, properly bewildered. "I could never think less of you."

Robb squeezes his eyes shut at the words, clenches her hands in his, lets out a weary, long-winded sigh. When he opens his eyes again, his mouth is tipped into a frown. "Sansa, I know you. Perhaps you are... 'learning', as you say. But even still. I know this marriage – " He swallows the words, takes a heated breath. "I know this isn't what you wanted."

"But it is what is," she answers softly.

Robb looks at her, hands tightening over hers. "Then how could you not resent me thus?" he asks on a weary sigh, face pained. "For having the chance at what was denied _you_."

Sansa looks down, watches the curve of her brother's thumbs arching over her knuckles. The motion transfixes her. Her voice is raw and thready when it leaves her throat. "Do you think so little of me, that I would spite you for such love?"

Robb pulls her hands to his chest, stepping into her, shaking his head. " _No_ ," he presses, "No, Sansa, I could never – " A tight swallow, a shake of his head, the words coming more slowly now. "That's not what I meant."

Sansa looks up at him finally. Her frail, tender smile tugs at the edges of her lips. "You know how well I think of Lady Margaery." She clears her throat, a hand pulling from his grasp to brace against his cheek. "I would see you happy, brother," she says earnestly, voice quaking.

Robb sighs at the words, eyes closing. "You're too good to me."

Sansa's hand curves around his cheek, pinching it lightly. "Remember that," she teases, voice strained with unshed tears. She doesn't understand the wetness at the edges of her eyes, the tightness in her chest. She blinks it back. Steadies the air in her lungs. Pulls her hand from his cheek.

"And you, sister?" he asks.

Sansa frowns at him, not seeing his meaning.

He tightens his hold over her hand at his chest, face solemn. "I would see you happy, as well." He cocks his head, watching her intently. "Are you?"

She licks her lips, swallowing tightly. A half-smile lights the curve of her mouth, tentative and brave. "I am learning that, as well," she says.

Robb nods, thumping her hand to his chest the once, twice, and then relinquishing his hold, eyes still trained on her. "You deserve it, Sansa – damn duty. You deserve it."

Her mouth parts, her gaze unblinking on his.

" _I intend to do my duty."_

Sansa shoves the memory back – bitter and stringent. And then, quite unexpectedly, another one comes forth instead –

" _I've got you."_

She is learning, yes.

Herself.

As much as she is learning him.

Sansa clasps her hands before her, gaze fixing out over the city's horizon once more, unable to look at him. "I will miss you," she says without prompt, voice cracking at the ends of her words. She straightens her shoulders at the admission, lips pursed tight.

Robb chuckles. "Bran will keep you company in the capital," he says.

Sansa throws him an incredulous look.

His chuckle becomes a full-blown laugh, and then he's reaching for her, drawing her into his chest, wrapping her in a hug that has the breath rushing from her chest, her hands wrapping around his form instinctively, her nose burying in the juncture between shoulder and neck.

"We will never be far," he promises into her hair, drawing her close.

Sansa exhales against his shoulder.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

She is learning, after all.

* * *

Jon enters his father's solar to find Ned Stark already seated before his father's desk. The Northern lord stands to greet Jon as he enters, and Jon swings a curious glance at his father after his own greeting. Rhaegar gestures for him to take a seat.

"I believe you've heard of the recent engagement between Robb Stark and Margaery Tyrell?" his father asks.

Jon's brows rise into his hairline. "I hadn't, actually."

Rhaegar only hums, nodding.

Ned turns to him then. "The suit has only just been made, my lord."

Jon nods his understanding, secretly relieved at the information. Not at the betrothal in and of itself, but that his ignorance of it would go to assure his father that he is not so entrenched in the Stark family as he thinks.

He wonders at such relief – at his carefulness with it.

"And so, there is to be another wedding," Rhaegar announces, hands clapping together the once. "At Winterfell, this time."

Ned looks to the King, face betraying nothing. Jon bristles at the silence that ensures. He shifts in his seat, an arm placed over his armrest as casually as he can manage. "And...my presence here, Father?"

Rhaegar glances to Ned, a glint to his violet eyes, and he looks so much like Aegon in this moment that Jon's chest constricts, his throat going dry.

Ned clears his throat, folding his hands together over his knees. "My son would wish his sister present for the wedding."

Jon blinks at his uncle.

"Your wife," Rhaegar supplies needlessly.

Jon grunts his acknowledgement. "Ah."

"You see my dilemma, son," Rhaegar muses, leaning back in his seat.

Jon looks to Ned, at the solemn way he watches him, the broad line of his shoulders, unbowed.

"It would only be for a few moons at most, my lord," Lord Stark explains. "The trip North, and a short stay with us at Winterfell for the wedding, before the return trip South."

Jon nods, tongue pressed to the roof of his mouth. "And she could not expect to travel without her husband," he supplies knowingly.

Lord Stark nods to him.

Jon looks to his father.

Rhaegar is watching him already, nails thrumming along his armrests. "And why should I part with my son, hmm? Why should I let him North?" His gaze turns toward Ned, head cocked slightly.

Ned shifts toward the king, head bowed in deference, hands unfolding as his mouth opens to speak –

"Because you want to solidify this union – my union to House Stark," Jon interrupts before he realizes the words are on his tongue.

Rhaegar flashes a harsh look his way, and Jon nearly buckles beneath the gaze, but something makes him bold, something scratches at the mettle in his chest with a nagging fierceness. "This marriage to the North, it helps us all." He glances to Ned then, meets his grey gaze a moment, before turning back to his father. "And what better way to signal peace than to sanction the union of the heir to Winterfell with the presence of his own blood? A royal blessing that the Northmen would recognize, acknowledge, _respect._ " He draws a breath, holds it tight, feels it branching through his lungs as he waits for his father's answer.

Rhaegar considers his words, lips pursed. "The presence of the crown prince might do more to sanction this betrothal," he considers aloud.

A motion of might. A reminder to the North, of exactly who holds the throne.

"Would you ask him to undertake such a long journey considering Daenerys'..." Jon glances to Ned, glances back, "Condition?" he finishes tightly.

The news of Aegon's heir is still kept only amongst the family. A caution. A protection.

Jon knows his father's sensitivity to such issues.

Rhaegar shifts in his seat, a hand going to his chin, lips pursed in thought. "You would represent your brother in such an affair."

"Yes," Jon answers dutifully, no hint of impatience bleeding through.

Ned watches the exchange silently.

Rhaegar's hand slips from his chin, eyes bright, a sharp smile curving his lips. "You must do us proud, son."

Jon releases his breath quietly, beneath a thin frown.

"It is settled then," his father commands. "My son shall accompany his wife to Winterfell for the marriage of the Stark heir." Rhaegar turns to Ned then, chin lifting, handsome face pale in the afternoon light. "And House Targaryen thanks you, Lord Stark, in advance, for your welcome of my son." The emphasis on 'my son' is not lost on Jon, nor on Lord Stark it seems, as Ned grimaces minutely before offering a rough smile, head nodded in respect. "I shall treat him as dearly as my own," he says, glancing to Jon.

Jon stares at him wide-eyed at the words, breathless at the hidden brazenness, and yet, quietly admiring of it.

"Hmm," Rhaegar answers, gaze narrowing. "Quite."

Jon looks to his father then, leaning toward him with a staunch expression. "I shall present myself with honor, Father, always, in the name of House Targaryen." He hopes the meaning is gleaned from his words, his eyes, his very posture.

Rhaegar shutters away the look of disquiet, a charming, wide smile gracing his face instead. "I would expect nothing less."

Jon swallows thickly, eyes flitting toward the floor.

Rhaegar clears his throat, folding his hands over his lap. "Well, then, Lord Stark, you have your answer. I would speak with my son further, if you don't mind."

Ned takes the dismissal with ease, rising from his chair with a grateful nod, head held high, a stiff smile sent Jon's way before he's turning for the door.

It's hardly clicking shut before Rhaegar is rising from his seat, striding around the desk toward Jon. Jon rises as well when his father motions him to stand. He grasps him by the shoulders, and Jon stiffens beneath the touch, though never flinching.

"We must take this opportunity, son."

Jon sighs, already understanding the request, knowing it is the only thing letting him North.

He'd banked on it, after all.

"You must take stock of the Northern court while you're there. Speak with the lords, listen to the gossip of the smallfolk, find out where Northern loyalties lie. We must ensure their continued fealty."

"Have I not done so already, Father?"

Rhaegar watches him with a steady gaze, hands moving to cup his face instead of his shoulders. "Marriage is only the first step of the game, my boy."

Jon purses his lips, mouth a thin line.

Rhaegar cocks his head, hands falling from Jon's face. "And the Lady Sansa? Is she not with child yet?"

"Soon, I'm sure of it." The words are sour on his tongue, especially when his father's mouth curls into a knowing smirk.

"Not for lack of trying, I assume. I imagine you have little trouble with a lady of such...gifts."

Jon barely manages to suppress his grimace, a coil of anger tightening in his gut, but then Rhaegar's face goes somber, a sharp beauty to it, his hands returning to his cheeks. His touch is affectionate, cradling, and Jon's breath stills in his chest.

Rhaegar's eyes rove his face, one of his thumbs grazing a cheekbone. "So much of your mother in you," he whispers, almost as though he hadn't meant it to be heard, and he blinks when the words leave him, a slip, a faltering step – a crack in the mask.

His father shuts the expression away quickly, thumb stilling its trail over his cheek. He clears his throat. "Yes, the North will welcome you. With open arms, I imagine," he sneers. And then he pats him on the cheek, nods, and turns back toward his desk.

A clear dismissal.

"I know you will not fail me, son," his father says in farewell, and Jon cannot be certain whether he means in procuring an heir or cataloging the Northern forces, but he thinks perhaps it doesn't matter which.

Failure of any sort is not to be tolerated.

And even still, his bastard heart takes the words in like an embrace.

Jon swallows back the bitterness.

He hates this craving of his.

But he hates more how it never seems soothed.

* * *

Sansa is already abed when Jon settles in beside her. She's lying on her side atop the covers, facing him, one hand fingering the edge of her pillow with a look of consternation.

Jon turns to mirror her, a sigh leaving him. "My lady?"

Her gaze meets his finally, lip drawn between her teeth. "You..." She stops, hand stilling along her pillow, releasing her lip with a soft sigh. "I heard you spoke with the King and my father today."

"I did."

"About my presence in Winterfell for my brother's wedding."

Jon looks down the length of her, lips pursed, eyes alighting on the long stretch of her pale leg past the edge of her shift. "You would wish to return, I imagine."

Her fingers curl along the pillow. "I would."

Jon glances back up at her. "Your home will always be here now, you understand?" It's not said cruelly. Only honestly.

Sansa nods slowly, eyes fixed to his. "I understood that the moment I first alighted the steps." Her voice is small, but not unsure, and Jon finds himself shifting closer toward her, lessening the space between them. Her mouth parts, her eyes searching his. Tentatively, she releases the pillow beneath her head to press her delicate fingers to his chest, just beneath the hollow of his throat.

Jon swallows tightly, stilling beneath her touch.

Her eyes trail to the placement of her hand, brows drawn together. They stay like this for many moments, hardly breathing. And then she thrums her fingers lightly along the sliver of skin bared by his sleeping tunic. "But I am his sister."

The words draw Jon's attention so tightly he almost stops breathing, eyes roving over her face.

She takes a breath, fingers light upon his chest. She draws her lip back between her teeth a moment. "He wishes me there, and I... I shall always try to be. We are family, after all."

Jon clenches his jaw at the words, eyes drifting down her form once more. He reaches for the edge of her shift mindlessly, fingers playing with the thin fabric, knuckles brushing her thighs.

He pretends not to notice her soft intake of breath at the motion.

"Family," he muses, voice rough.

Sansa stays deadly still, his fingers dancing over her thigh now. And then she leans toward him, hand pressing more firmly to his chest. "He's your brother now, too."

Jon's eyes flick to hers instantly.

(A crushed petal, a flick of leather, a stolen stone.)

_Brother._

"We are family," she repeats, voice firm.

She's unspeakably lovely by candlelight, Jon finds. An intimate sort of lovely. The kind that only a husband may know.

His fingers stretch over the smooth expanse of her thigh, shift bunching beneath his grip, a rumbling sigh leaving him.

Sansa stares at him unblinkingly, her throat flexing beneath her tight swallow. "My lord?"

His eyes fix to the wide set of his hand along her thigh, a heavy breath raking from him, before meeting her gaze once more. "My father has agreed to our journeying to Winterfell for the wedding."

Sansa's mouth breaks into a wide grin, eyes bright, leaning toward him unconsciously. The space between them narrows further, so that he can feel the hot expel of her breath when her happy sigh leaves her, her fingers curling at his chest, her face full of joy and relief and the slightest hint of awe. "Truly?"

(Unspeakably lovely.)

Jon's answering grunt lodges in his throat at the sight of her.

Sansa leans back slightly, her hand falling from his chest, turning in the bed somewhat so that she can stare up at the ceiling, her smile breaking over her face in unhindered sincerity. "Oh, how I've missed it. And Mother, and Rickon, and Jeyne, and _gods_ , even Arya. That insufferable creature," she laughs, and Jon is thrown by the sight of it.

He watches her with wonderous eyes, his hand slipping from her thigh.

She glances back to him, smile still wide, and something flickers in her gaze when she catches sight of him. She turns back, nestling along the silken sheets to face him once more. "I want to show it to you, my lord. My family's home. _Your_..." She catches the words along her lips, takes a deep breath. " _Your_ family's home."

Family.

It is a strange word these days. Intangible. Hovering always at the peripheral of his world – as thunder follows lightning.

And so does 'Targaryen' follow 'Jon'.

So does 'duty' follow 'desire'.

(He doesn't know yet, what 'Stark' is meant to follow – or if it is meant to be its own.)

Jon swallows back that ache, that searing sense of yearning. "My mother's home," he says tightly, voice like gravel. "Not mine." It's a sorrowful expel of breath he releases, barely able to stifle the sound.

Sansa watches him in the flickering candlelight, the moon's pale shadow halting at the edge of their bed from the window behind. Her hand returns to his chest, more sure this time. "It can be yours, my lord, if you wished it." Her voice is tremulous, a quivering of air.

An out-stretched hand.

But Jon knows better than to reach for it. "My father needs me here."

Sansa's fingers thrum along his chest thoughtfully.

_Your home will always be here now, you understand?_

When he looks at Sansa, he thinks it more like a cage. Gilded and sunlit, and yet, still –

A cage.

Jon's hand returns to the edge of her shift, playing with the material, his rough fingertips catching along the silken fabric.

He'd see her smile again – brilliant and free.

He'd see her smile, always.

"We will return after the ceremony," he gets out lowly, voice catching. His fist clenches along her shift.

Sansa says nothing, her hand staying pressed to his chest. She edges it the slightest bit higher, fingers trailing over his throat, the subtle bob of his Adam's apple. Her smile wilts, though she does her best to hold it in place.

Jon is beginning to recognize the subtle curves of her lips, the flicker in her eyes, the telling lines of her face.

"As you wish, my lord," she says, and Jon wants to howl for it.

None of this is as he wishes.

His hand spreads over her thigh once more. She doesn't arch into his touch. He feels a flare of something in his chest – needy and lonesome.

_It can be yours_.

Jon shakes the thought from his mind instantly.

He clears his throat instead, finds her gaze, runs a thumb along the smooth line of her thigh just under her shift. "We will journey North with your father and brother."

Sansa nods. "And the Lady Margaery?"

"Her as well."

Another nod. Another thrum of her fingers over the hollow of his throat. "And the crown prince...?"

Jon stiffens at the mention, jaw tightening. "Shall remain here," he finishes for her.

The barest hint of a breath leaves her, face easing some of its tension, and Jon is too careful to call it relief, though he aches to.

Sansa offers a mild smile in response. "It would be unseemly of him to leave Daenerys in her state, I suppose."

Jon doesn't answer her, drawing his gaze back to her thigh instead. His hand draws lazy circles over the flesh there.

Sansa watches him beneath the shadows of the room. "Prince Aegon doesn't seem particularly...happy with the news," she ventures carefully.

Aegon and Daenerys would be the last to call their marriage amiable, but sometimes, Jon catches the looks they share, an angry sort of attraction, born from necessity perhaps – each demanding something of the other that neither one can give. Aegon has had his mistresses, secret and fleeting though they've always been. And if Daenerys has had her own lovers, well, Jon has never heard or seen them.

But in one thing they've always aligned.

Jon rolls the words along his tongue a moment before letting them to air. "He's careful," he tells her. "As is she." He sighs then, a shadow of grief taking him. "They've been through this before."

Sansa's brows draw together in confusion, her mouth parting. No sound comes out.

Jon works his jaw, a deep-kept memory taking form behind his lids – his brother sitting at the end of a long, dark hall, his face in his hands, his shoulders shaking, pale hair shadowing his features.

The harrowing sob that echoed through the corridor.

(Jon will never forget the sound for as long as he lives.)

"She's never carried to term," he reveals on a shaky breath, chest tight. His lips purse, jaw quaking.

Sansa burrows closer to him, her hand curling into a loose fist at his chest. "Gods, you mean she...?"

"Twice," he gets out, voice rough. He swallows back the remembrance.

(Pale hair against a dark night, at the end of a long and lonely corridor.)

Sansa stares at her fist against him, head shaking slightly, throat bobbing with emotion. "I never...I mean, how..." She swallows the words back, closes her eyes.

Jon watches the flutter of her lashes against her cheek, taken by the sight of her keen anguish, this way of hers to _feel_ so much, to take the weight of others into her heart wholly and willingly.

He caresses her thigh smoothly, softly, careful of the roughness in his hands. He cradles her tenderness in steel-weathered palms.

A short, sharp breath leaves her. A shake of her head. Eyes fluttering open to watch him. "Your family harbors many secrets, apparently."

Jon offers a rueful grin, a quirk of his brow. "Welcome to life at court," he says darkly.

Sansa huffs, though not angrily. It's an exhausted sort of exhale.

Jon's hand shifts higher, gliding toward her hip. "But you are learning our secrets faster than most," he tells her, eyes trailing down her form once more.

Sansa opens her mouth, closes it, swallows back her trepidation. Her thighs rub together slightly, shifting her toward him. Jon's throat tightens imperceptibly.

"Then I would learn one more, my lord," she whispers in the space between their mouths.

Jon watches her with dark eyes. "Then ask."

Her hand unwinds at his chest, fingers catching along the open collar of his tunic. Her eyes flick to the motion, and she misses the way he licks his lips in anticipation. "Would you welcome a child born of this union?" she utters without faltering, nails scraping lightly over his skin.

Jon shudders beneath the touch, his hand stilling in its caress of her thigh.

She blinks up at him.

He holds the stare for many moments, the words festering along his tongue.

Something in her gaze makes the silence nearly unbearable.

As unbearable as lies.

And so, he would give her truth.

"No," he says, voice catching. "Not in this way."

For her part, she doesn't rear back from him, doesn't admonish him, or cast her judgement upon him, or do anything at all except splay her fingers over his chest, tilt her head along the pillow and meet his gaze unblinkingly. "In what way?" she asks, voice barely a whisper between them.

Jon swallows, gaze roving her face. "As an expectation."

Sansa takes his answer quietly, lips pursed. She glances down to her hand at his chest. "And would you want children...for you? Not because it was asked of you?"

It was never asked, he wants to say. It was commanded.

But he thinks maybe she knows this, even if neither of them will voice it.

And yet again, she draws such truths from him that it leaves him reeling – floundering in the wake of such blaring clarity. "I don't know," he tells her, more honest than he's ever been. "I think I..." The words catch, jagged and unfamiliar, along his throat. He lets them to air like the beating of wings.

Like a cage door swinging wide.

"I think I should like to know what it's like to want something that wants me in turn," he says before he can collar the words.

A father's sort of wanting.

And not a son's.

(He would wish better for a son of his, this he knows. This he knows more truly than anything.)

A love reciprocated.

Jon wonders if it isn't foolish of him to wish for such. To wish for children in the way he hopes his father wished for _him_.

"Thank you," she tells him, eyes brilliant and blue, face tender beyond words, an intensity to her stare that startles him.

His brows draw down, his hand tightening over her thigh. He leans toward her unconsciously.

Her gaze flicks to his mouth, her voice breathless when she tells him, "Thank you for being honest with me."

Jon licks his lips, suddenly aware of her heat beneath his palm, and the narrowing space between them, and the way she's staring at his mouth – the way she arches slightly when he runs his fingers up her thigh, his hand disappearing beneath her shift.

Her breath hitches, her eyes flicking back to his, shifting along the covers almost restlessly when he drags his knuckles back down the length of her thigh. "Should I tell you a secret of my own?" she whispers tremulously.

Jon's answer is a rumble in his chest, his mouth going dry at the subtle parting of her legs when he runs his hand back up the inside of her thigh, stopping exasperatingly close to her smallclothes.

Something of a whine eases from her throat, and Jon's attention narrows to such a pinprick focus he barely registers the bite of her nails at his chest when she curls her hand in his tunic. "When you...when you touched me – _there_ \- ah!"

She jumps when his thumb grazes over her smallclothes, barely there, the ghost of a touch.

"Yes?" he asks, voice rough, head spinning.

Sansa's cheeks heat, but she doesn't break his gaze, doesn't hide her face in her pillow, doesn't recoil from his touch when he drags the silken fabric of her shift up over her hips, baring her to his view, fingers trailing low over her stomach toward the ties of her smallclothes.

Her breathing deepens, her back arching.

His fingers dance along her sensitive skin, reveling in the tremble that racks her.

He's trembling, too, if he dares to admit it.

Sansa releases a strangled sound, hand splaying over his chest.

"Tell me," he whispers darkly, hand dangerously close to her heat. He feels himself hardening at the way she rubs her thighs together unconsciously, never taking her gaze from his.

"I want..." she begins, voice catching. She clears her throat, tongue darting out to wet her lips.

Jon's chest heaves, his whole body taut, wavering at the edge, just a fall away, and then –

"I want you to touch me there again," she says boldly, cheeks pink, lip caught between her teeth.

Jon groans deep in his chest when he finally slips his hand beneath her smallclothes, watching her face as his fingers slide between her folds, already slick, and he rocks toward her unconsciously, mouth parting at the blissful expression that lights her features.

"Like this?" he asks on a rough exhale, a hint of cockiness lacing his tone.

Sansa's hips jerk against his hand, a hiss breaking from between her teeth, even as she nods.

Jon leans forward, pressing his forehead to hers. He sighs against her lips, sliding his fingers along her folds, circling her clit in slow, taunting motions. She whines at his mouth, a soft mewl breaking from her, and Jon growls at the sound, pressing into her, sliding his hand further into her smallclothes so he can slip a finger inside her.

Sansa grips at his shoulder with a shuddering gasp.

It's not exactly a secret, Jon finds, the way her body reacts to his touch.

"Jon," she pants, hips undulating, back bowing.

The sound of his name on her lips – like a barely kept moan, like a haunting desire –

He buries his face in her neck, slides another finger alongside the first, groans into the soft flesh of her throat when she bucks against his hand.

" _Jon_."

It's less and less a secret, he finds, the way she unravels him.

The way she bares him bloody.

And when he finally slips inside her, bracing her back against the pillows, mouth set to the sweat-slicked skin of her throat, tongue hot against her writhing flesh –

He wonders how he ever thought to keep it from her in the first place.

* * *

They learn to speak without words. Sansa finds she trusts her body far more easily than she trusts her voice where Jon is concerned, and he has proven to be an avid listener when her body speaks.

He likes her hair undone, she finds – likes to wind his fingers through the strands when he's atop her, driving into her slowly and teasingly, the tug of his hand in her tresses maddeningly gentle, even in its neediness. She always cums first like this, her face buried in his shoulder, riding out her orgasm with her heels dug into the small of his back, clutching tightly to him as it takes her in waves and waves and slow, blinding waves.

She likes when he takes her from behind, she finds – settled on their sides, with his fingers furiously circling her clit, his pants at her ear, his low curses filling her with a hazy pride, and how quickly he cums like this, buried so deep in her she aches for hours afterward, thighs rubbing together in anticipation of the following night, when she feels the telltale curl of his palm over her hip and the nip of his teeth at the back of her neck.

He likes when she doesn't smother her moans. She likes when he sucks a brand into the skin above her breast.

They each like the drag of her nails along his back and the way he hitches her thighs roughly over his hips and the breathy, shameless whines he can drag from her when he whispers bolder and bolder filth into her ear.

And yet they never kiss.

It's a fine line, mouths often braced just above each other, the warm pant of their breaths constantly fanning each other's cheeks, the barest brush of a tongue when one darts out to wet the lips, and even still – a flicker of eyes, a hesitant look, a glance away.

Another hard and breathless fuck.

They learn to speak without words.

But their bodies are loud and blaring in the wake of such silence.

He will not kiss her, she thinks, unless she does so first. And the longer and longer they keep from it, the harder it is to bring herself to such affection.

It is easy to fuck Jon Targaryen, she finally lets herself admit.

It is an altogether different matter to love him.

"I do hope you don't get lost up there in all that snow, dear brother," Rhaenys says one night before they all retire, gathered around the recently cleared dinner table. She tips her wine glass slowly back and forth in the low light.

Jon offers his sister a humoring smile. "I promise to return, Rhaenys, you needn't fear that."

She huffs softly at being so easily discernible, and Jon chuckles at her, taking a sip of his own wine. His free hand hangs over the edge of his armrest, fingers grazing Sansa's wide sleeve beside him, almost subconsciously.

Sansa notices the motion all too consciously though, and so does Rhaenys it seems, as the other woman narrows dark eyes at her suddenly, mouth pursed tight.

Sansa takes a gulp of her own wine, hand deftly extracting from over her armrest, sleeve slipping easily from between Jon's fingers.

He seems to notice the loss half a second before Rhaenys clears her throat, a smack of her lips accompanying her words. "Well, at least your dragon blood should keep you warm in such frigid country."

Aegon chuckles across from them, wisely choosing not to remark on the conversation.

Sansa glances to Rhaenys at her comment. "I daresay you'd find the North surprisingly warmer than your expectations, my lady."

"Warm indeed," Jon mutters softly, almost without realizing it, and Sansa's cheeks heat at the words, gaze shifting between Jon and his sister, unsure whether the words were loud enough to carry.

Rhaenys' glare doesn't do much to assure her either way.

"Yes, well," Rhaenys continues, nails thrumming along her wine glass when she sets it to the table, "From what I hear, Northerners have never taken too kindly to our Southron heat. Must be the blood."

Sansa feels her spine straightening, her tongue pressing to the roof of her mouth in some semblance of control. "And you've been witness to many such instances?" she asks stiffly.

Rhaenys lifts a brow, fingers trailing over the rim of her wineglass. "Well, Jon's mother didn't fare too well, did she?"

Jon goes still beside Sansa, and she glances to him immediately, hand tightening over her wineglass. He is silent as the grave, dark eyes riveted to his sister, a look of such wounded bitterness she doesn't think she's ever seen aimed Rhaenys' way before.

The Targaryen princess ignores the look determinedly, throat bobbing with her swallow when she leans back in her chair to watch Sansa.

"Rhaenys," Aegon says lowly, a slow swirl to his wineglass, violet eyes almost pale from the light of the sconces along the wall.

"I'd heard she was a great rider, a fierce lady, something of spirit to her I'm told and yet, she was far frailer than the stories would lead you to believe. Isn't that right, Jon?"

Jon grinds his jaw, sitting straighter in his seat, his free hand curling around his armrest tightly. Sansa watches the motion with keen eyes, wanting to reach for him but not knowing how. Something flares hot and angry in her chest.

Rhaenys lets the silence linger a moment longer, eyes shifting between the two of them, and when neither of them speaks a word to rebuke her, letting her words settle like forgotten dust across the wide set table, Sansa watches as the desperation lights brilliantly beneath the princess's skin.

Like a slow blooming stain – like the spreading of ink in water.

Rhaenys bites her lip, sharpens her teeth, seethes another bout of heat – as searing as dragon's breath. "I suppose you would be rather the same, Lady Sansa, delicate thing you are. A true winter rose, I'd say. Tell me, is my brother not gentle enough with you? I fear you aren't the first Stark woman unable to bear such heat. Dragons are beasts, after all, you see. And my brother is just such."

Jon's growl stains the air, his fists bunching, and Aegon's mouth opens in reprimand, his eyes sharp and cutting.

But it's Sansa's voice that cuts through the room instead. "It's certainly not his mother he treats me like in the marriage bed," she nearly hisses, all fine graces and poised features.

Jon swings his gaze to her so sharply she nearly hears his neck crack.

Aegon muffles a discomfited cough behind a polite hand.

Rhaenys stews in her seat, jaw clenching as she bites her tongue.

Sansa squirms beneath Jon's heavy stare, the sudden realization of her words drawing a flush up her neck. She stutters an apology, quiet and half-formed. She looks to her hands as they bunch in her lap.

And then Aegon is laughing, bright and sharp, and Rhaenys turns away, huffing her distaste, eyes glistening with a wet sheen.

Jon continues to stare at Sansa, his gaze dark and indiscernible.

"Oh, the wolf _bites_ , brother," Aegon muses, raising his glass to his curled lips, a flutter of amusement flashing through his eyes.

Jon doesn't take his eyes from her. "I've noticed," he breathes lowly.

Sansa's cheeks heat in embarrassment and rage. She curls her hands into a tighter bunch atop her lap.

"Well, on that note, I think I shall bid you all goodnight," Aegon says as he rises from the table. "Daenerys will have need of me." He offers a nod in farewell, quitting the room before Sansa can find it in herself to utter anything more than a croak.

She bristles beneath the remaining Targaryen stares, pushing from her seat swiftly. "I'm rather tired myself," she manages through a ragged breath, never meeting either of their eyes. She curtseys appropriately, head tilted in deference toward Rheanys. "My lady." She meets Jon's gaze for but a moment, eyes quickly flitting away and toward the floor before she turns to leave. "My lord."

She feels his eyes on her back all the way to the door.

She's only just through it when the scrape of a chair stops her, and she settles a hand along the threshold, the door swinging almost closed behind her when she presses her other hand to her chest in hopes of steadying her raging heart.

Rhaenys' scoff lights something in her, and she's nearly ready to turn and walk back through the door when Jon's voice stops her.

"Sister." It's dark, and low, and dangerous.

It sends a shudder up Sansa's spine, and she braces back against the threshold to peek inside, unseen.

Jon has Rhaenys caught with a firm hand around her wrist, glaring up at her.

Rhaenys seems to soften, brows furrowed in distress, or perhaps regret. She reaches for his face with her free hand, but Jon bats her touch away easily.

Both women stare at him with startled eyes, Sansa's form still hidden behind the door.

"You will not use my mother so, to disparage my wife thus, do you understand?" There's a current of warning to the words and Sansa feels a coil of heat in the pit of her stomach at the utterance.

Rhaenys stares down at him, eyes wide. "Jon, you can't possibly – "

" _Never again_ , do you hear me?"

Rhaenys' mouth opens, closes, opens again. No words find air though. And then she's tugging her wrist from his hold, and he releases her easily, rising to stand, looming over her.

Sansa turns from the door, bracing back along the wall, a hand at her collar, suddenly breathless without knowing why. Her heart hammers wildly, a rush of blood in her ears, and she's so taken by this feeling, so lost to it, that she doesn't even notice when Jon stalks through the door, not until he's stopping abruptly beside her, glancing to her when he notices her presence and they stay staring at each other for long heated moments.

"I wasn't...I mean I didn't mean to – "

But she doesn't get to finish.

Jon grabs her by the wrist, tugging her along after him, and she follows wordlessly, mindful of the way he takes care not to grip her too tightly, the way he keeps his pace slowed just the slightest for her to keep up, the way his hand ushers her urgently behind the door when they finally make their way back to their chambers.

And then his lips are at her jaw and his hands are at her laces and his breath nearly fills her mouth he's so _close_ , and she's spinning, panting, already clawing at him.

Already mostly beast herself.

When he buries himself inside her, skirts pushed up around her waist, her back pressed to the door, Sansa finds she does indeed know how to howl.

"Louder," Jon pants into her neck, thrusting harder, hips slamming into hers. The bite of her nails along his scalp has him groaning into her skin, palming at her thighs, hitching her legs further up over his hips with a reckless desperation.

"Oh gods," she gasps, head lolling back against the door, eyes sliding shut, and he doesn't stop, doesn't slow down, keeps filling her and filling her and her whole body is taut with it, slamming into the wood at her back with every brutal rut, every plunge of his cock into her waiting, wet cunt, and she can't stop the whimper that breaks across her lips, the whine in her throat that betrays her depravity.

Jon only slams into her harder, grunting with the effort, fingers digging bruises into her milk-white thighs. "That's it, Sansa, _louder_. Let them hear you scream." It's a growl that stains her skin, a rumbling demand that sends her barreling toward the edge. He fists a hand in her hair and tugs, bares her throat to his teeth. "I want them to hear you cum for me," he snarls. And then he bites down.

Sansa feels it rip from her.

A thousand shards of light.

A crippling, shattering descent.

A scream.

She wonders at what he's turned her into.

(She wonders at how easily she welcomes it.)

* * *

The Starks ready to leave King's Landing in three days time and Sansa is swept up in preparations. Her father asks her for what help she can provide, and what time she doesn't spend with her family she spends with Margaery. Jon is busy at court alongside his father most hours of the day, as Aegon spends his time in Daenerys' chambers with the maester more often than not. The crown prince is an attentive husband, Sansa finds, surprising herself with the revelation.

He escorts her from Daenerys' rooms this afternoon, after Sansa pays a sisterly visit, asking after her health and her concerns. Daenerys had given her a shrewd look, waving off Aegon's fretting, and then offering appropriate congratulations on her brother's betrothal. It was all very proper, if a bit clinical.

"She seems..." Sansa muses alongside Aegon as they walk the corridors. She lets the words trail off, uncertain.

"Distant?" he supplies, hands winding behind his back.

Sansa nods up at him, a look of concern gracing her features.

Aegon sighs, cocking his head at her. "It is her way."

Sever the cord before it can take form. Shut it away like it isn't part of you. Learn not to love until you are certain of its survival.

(It is an irreparable sort of grief, after all – to love what is dead before its time.)

Sansa stares ahead, unable to say more.

Aegon clears his throat, voice lilting softly. "But I thank you for your concern," he says. "And..." A pause, a sideways glance toward her as they walk. "Your discretion in this."

Sansa shakes her head, hands bunching before her. "Oh of course. I imagine you don't want to make the announcement public until...well, until there is more certainty."

Aegon nods, an answering grunt her only acknowledgement.

Sansa watches him out of the corner of her eye.

She remembers, suddenly, Rhaenys' expression when he'd shared the news several days past.

_How is she?_ , she'd asked, brows furrowed, eyes distraught, hand gripping her spoon with a fierceness.

Sansa understands now.

Yet another well-kept secret in the house of Targaryen. Sansa wonders how many more she may uncover in her time here.

She thinks of Rhaenys' cutting remarks and blatant hostility. She thinks of Daenerys' hollow words and detached looks. She thinks of the princely charm that is so strangely disconcerting about Aegon. And she thinks of the silent, fuming restlessness in Jon. She thinks of the slow boil between them all, the veiled meanings and sharpened edges. She thinks of how pretense makes for a comfortable skin in such a family. Pain is easily swept under the rug in this household, and she remembers all too easily their shared dinners, the perfectly poised smiles, the ever-flowing wine.

A smokescreen.

A pretty film over a dirtied lens.

Sansa aches more and more for Winterfell each day.

(Sometimes she sees Jon's dark shoulders against the white of her dreams, lined with a fur cloak of her own handiwork.)

"You and your sister are to remain here?"

Aegon hums his assent. "You shall have to give our congratulations for us, Lady Sansa." He offers her an easy smile. "You and Jon will carry the crown prince's blessing for your family."

"I shall try to do right by the honor," she assures him with a graceful nod.

Aegon accepts her assurance without further word, turning them down the corridor that leads to her and Jon's chambers. "I know Rhaenys will miss our brother dearly. But she will have to become accustomed to such distance. He is a married man, now, after all."

Sansa purses her lips at the reminder, finding no words in answer. Her hands bunch in her skirts.

Aegon glances to her out of the corner of his eye. "Forgive my sister," he says on a charming plead. "She's rather possessive of her brothers."

Sansa raises a brow Aegon's way, pointed.

He laughs at the sight. "I do not indulge her like Jon does," he explains.

"Yes, I've seen." And yet –

_Never again, do you hear me?_

It was not indulgence with which he addressed his sister the other night.

Sansa's spine stiffens, a rush lancing through her, a vibrant remembrance – his hands hitching her thighs around his waist, his hips pinning her to the door, his hot tongue laving over the bite at her neck.

Sansa clears her throat when they arrive at her door, and Aegon leaves her with a polite farewell, walking back the way he came. She stays watching his retreat for many moments, thoughtful, before reaching for the door handle.

She dines with her family that night, and it's an evening filled with laughter and smiles and shared toasts, Robb's cheeks dusting pink with every tease Theon throws his way, even as he quips back readily, Bran's excited tales of his training filling the room, her father's quiet, contented smile as he leans back in his seat and watches them.

That night, as Sansa steps from her bath, arms looping through the sleeves of the robe her handmaiden offers her, she wonders what Jon's addition to dinner might have held. Would he have laughed alongside Robb and Theon? Would he have offered Bran pointers in his training? Would he have shared a glass of ale with her father?

Would he have escorted her back to their chambers after a shake of hands with her brothers, a steady arm at her side, the wine warming her, her head tilted to his shoulder beneath the faint moonlight passing through the corridor windows before his hand would be dipping lower, spreading over the small of her back, ushering her behind their chamber door, breath already ragged for her, hands already frantic at her laces?

Is that what life with Jon Targaryen could be?

Sansa doesn't recognize the stifled quiet of the room until she's glancing up and catching Jon's gaze through her vanity's mirror. She startles, standing swiftly, brush falling from her hand as she turns.

Her handmaiden has long fled the room, apparently at Jon's urging, and Sansa stands braced back against her vanity, one hand curled along the collar of her thin robe to steady her thundering heartbeat. "My lord, you scared me."

Jon tilts his head at her, just watching.

It's been days since they've been intimate, since he took her against their bedroom door and Sansa urged him on willingly, her heels locked around his back, her nails digging into his shoulders, her cries echoing through her mind even now, a flush branching up her throat at the remembrance.

So utterly debauched. So expressly unladylike.

Sansa finds her chest heaving nonetheless, an ache in her, secretly thrilled at the neediness he shows her, delighted by every rumbling groan he buries in her neck, the way he shakes when he comes undone inside her.

The way he's staring at her now, not bothering to hide his desire in the slightest.

Something shifted between them that night, when he'd slid her back down to the floor on shaky feet, braced his forehead against hers, ran his hand tenderly over the smooth ,trembling line of her thigh, almost in reverence, before tucking her skirts back down and stepping from her.

He hasn't stopped looking at her that way since.

And maybe she's just been too utterly terrified of what that look means when he slides into bed beside her, and she turns into her pillow, heart still hammering its ravaged staccato beat, heat still creeping through her, and she's irrepressibly relieved when he doesn't reach for her.

She thinks she might just rend beneath his touch if he did. Split right open for him, bare and raw and half-mad.

But she should have known it'd come back to this – to this slowly receding space between them. Like the inching of dawn over a moon-drenched horizon.

"Open it," he breathes raggedly, voice hoarse.

Sansa licks her lips, staring at him, hand still bunched in her collar. She grips at the vanity's ledge behind her.

Yes, she should have known it'd come back to this.

(Her terror gives way to want so easily in his presence, she finds.)

Sansa tugs the tie of her robe apart with shaking fingers, letting the silk flutter open, baring her entirely to his gaze.

Jon sucks a sharp breath in, a low rumble in his chest, his hands flexing at his sides. His eyes rove down her form, and she finds herself arching slightly beneath the appreciative gaze, robe slipping further open over her breasts, her chest heaving, skin tingling.

Jon takes a step toward her, stops, flits his gaze back toward hers immediately.

She nearly stops breathing, throat tight with anticipation. Her thighs rub together unconsciously, her damp hair slipping over her shoulder when she dips her eyes toward the floor a moment, unable to bear his heated stare any longer.

"May I touch you?" he asks, voice taut with his need, barely a hiss of words.

She glances back up at the unexpected question, instantly taken, her hand falling from the tie. " _Please_ ," she whines, low in her throat, before she can stop the word, and it's the start of the fall.

Jon rushes to her, hands pushing the robe back to wind around her waist instinctively, breath fanning her lips in one long, shuttering exhale. Sansa gasps at the grip of him, his hands gliding up her waist, thumbs ghosting over her ribcage, worshipful. Her hands fall to his shoulders to steady herself when he stumbles her back against the vanity, one of his hands covering her breast now, kneading it firmly, eyes fixed to the motion, mouth parted, his other hand winding around her back to hold her to him. Sansa arches into his touch, a hiss of his name passing her lips and Jon looks up at her finally, tongue darting out to wet his lips, eyes dark and hooded, chest heaving so sharply he's making her winded. He doesn't take his eyes off her face when he flicks a taut nipple teasingly, dipping his head to follow.

Sansa squirms beneath his ministrations, shuddering when his mouth closes over her breast, tongue laving over her nipple, the hand at her back sliding low over her hip to grind her against his hardness. He groans into her flesh, echoing her own lengthy moan, her hands winding into his hair to hold him to her.

She's long given up on propriety in such a regard.

She holds him to her now as desperately as he does her.

"Gods," he pants into her skin, nipping softly, smiling at the jolt that ricochets through her, "I've thought of little else all day but..." He hums into her skin, words trailing off as he laps at her again, tongue swirling around her nipple, dragging another breathless moan from her as she shakes and pants and mewls beneath him.

"Little else but what?" she manages to get out, licking her lips in anticipation, legs already parting for him, moments away from dragging his hand to her cunt herself, whispering her need of him into his ear, practically _begging_ him to fuck her right there against her vanity.

The thought of such baseness coming so easily from her lips has her impossibly wetter, fingers gripping at his hair.

But then Jon stills against her, breathing heavily, eyes flicking up to meet hers once more, mouth perched just above her breast, glistening from his fervent tongue.

"Jon?" she manages through her haze, blinking furiously at him.

"Do you trust me?"

Sansa goes still, staring at him. She feels the press of his fingers along the small of her back, anchoring her to him, his other hand wrapped around her ribcage, and she's in his hold already, so clearly, so transparently, the realization very nearly stumbles her against him.

"I do," she whispers without lingering too long on it.

(The words seem to hover always at the edge of her lips, anyway – just a tilt over the edge and she's plummeting.)

Jon nods, reeling back, and before Sansa can object to the loss, he's winding his hands beneath her thighs and hoisting her up, planting her roughly back along the vanity, toppling her perfumes and pins and pretty little Northern combs all across the wood and along the floor.

Sansa gasps at the sudden shift, hands flying to his shoulders once more, her head knocking softly against the mirror behind her and Jon's muttered apology is smothered against her breast, the breath winded from her and then he's sinking to his knees, hands pressing her thighs apart in his feverishness and then it's _wet_ and warm and _gods is that his tongue?_

Sansa shrieks, thighs clamping shut over his ears and Jon curses at the pain, jolting back from her cunt slightly, looking up at her.

"Sorry, sorry," she stammers, "I just – I'm sorry, but – what are you _doing_?"

He chuckles suddenly at her earnest apologies, stilling between her legs, eyes bright, lip curled in a fond smile and Sansa is struck dumb by the image, her mouth tipping closed as the breath rakes through her, her own laugh tugging at her lips.

Jon slides his hands slowly up her bare thighs, trying to calm his own impatient desire, fingers kneading the flesh tenderly, staring up at her with a searing intensity.

"Jon."

"I want to taste you, Sansa."

She gulps back her words, hands steadying her against the vanity as she stares down at him.

Slowly, with his eyes still trained on hers, Jon leans toward her sex again, lips planted just at the inside of her thigh, a soft press of his mouth setting a tremble through her.

She can't stop staring at him.

Another roguish curl of his lips lights his features before he mouths at her thigh again, teeth nipping softly.

Her legs part further, easing out some of their tension. She reaches for his jaw, and he turns his head into her hand, his breath hot along her thigh, and he breathes deep, taking her in, the scent of her, the nearness. The image is strikingly intimate, her thumb grazing over his cheek, her thighs trembling as they widen further, a silent invitation, her voice lodged in her throat.

He doesn't take his eyes from her face when he leans the rest of the way forward, her hand slipping from his jaw, and slides his tongue slowly up her folds.

Sansa drops her head back along the mirror, a strangled sound easing from her throat. She bites her lip when he does it again, lingering at her clit, a gentle swirl of his tongue over the nub making her buck her hips toward his mouth. Her cheeks flame at the uncontrollable reflex, one hand reaching back to grip at the mirror behind her, the other winding hesitantly into his hair.

He groans into her cunt when her fingers slide against his scalp, and the sound reverberates all the way through her body, arching her up off the vanity when he sucks at her clit suddenly, tongue gushing over her, hands curling tight along her thighs to drag her closer to his working mouth.

"Oh gods, Jon, _Jon_ \- you're - " A short, sharp breath, her legs curling around him, ankles locking at his back, hips undulating beneath his tongue. And then he's slipping a finger inside her, sucking at her clit furiously, tongue lapping eagerly at her dripping cunt. "Fuck," she curses without realizing, mind a haze, vision slowly inking white, hand digging into his hair now, keeping his face buried between her legs as she moans long and low, rutting against his hot tongue. "Gods, Jon, _fuck_ \- fuck, I'm - "

Her unexpected curses must excite him, because he's slipping another finger inside her, pumping steadily, growling into her cunt like a man starved, licking her up messily, hungrily, eating her out with a sudden viciousness, her juices soaking his beard, his heavy pants drowned by the slick gush of her cunt against his mouth and then he takes her clit between his teeth, sucks hard, drives his fingers deep and rough, curling up, and her body bows against the mirror, a cry ripped from her, thighs clenching around his head, rutting shamelessly into his mouth as he laps up her release enthusiastically, grunting into her cunt with a contented kind of hum, mouth full of her.

She's pushing at his shoulder then, panting heavily, legs unlocking around his back to stare down at him, arms trembling as she tries to stay upright against the mirror at her back. He pulls his mouth from her cunt reluctantly, his needy groan sending a shudder through her, and he looks up at her, licking his glistening lips, eyes glassy. Her breath catches, her hand reaching for his jaw once more, thumb brushing over the wet plushness of his lips. He parts his lips to taste it, to take her thumb into his mouth, tongue swirling over the edge of it between his lips, and she presses further, eyes wide as he takes her thumb into his mouth up to the knuckle. She pulls out swiftly, chest heaving.

He winds his hands back up her thighs, staying nestled between her legs, the hand wet with her slick trailing a path up her gooseflesh-pebbled skin.

"You like that?" she whispers breathlessly, a strange sort of restlessness curling inside her.

He hums contentedly, nuzzling against her thigh.

"Your mouth on my...my..."

"On your cunt?" he supplies with another nip along her thigh.

Sansa sucks a breath between her teeth. "Yes."

Jon heaves a sigh, hands winding over her hips, curving appreciatively over the flesh, before dragging slowly back down over her thighs again. "I've wanted it for weeks," he sighs into her skin, mouth pressed to her. "That beautiful, wet cunt," he mutters, as though drunk on her.

Sansa's chest tightens, her hand releasing the mirror at her back to watch him.

Jon closes his eyes, hands gliding over the smooth flesh of her thighs, mouth dangerously close to her cunt once more, still dripping, still absolutely soaked for him. "Gods, how I've wanted to bury my tongue inside you, to feel you cum in my mouth."

Sansa stifles another moan behind a bitten lip, eyes riveted to him.

He plants another kiss at the juncture of her hip and thigh, spreading her legs wide once more, eyes fluttering open to take in her cunt, pink and wet and _right there_. He presses his tongue back along her sensitive folds, giving a single, long swipe, gripping her thighs as she quakes beneath his mouth, whimpering. He looks back up at her, eyes hooded beneath dark curls. "That pretty little cunt – so wet for me. For my mouth, my fingers, my _cock_."

Sansa whines low in her throat, wanting to push him from her and drag him back up her body all at once.

Jon curls his tongue out, swirling it languidly over her clit, watching as she spreads her legs impossibly wider for him, aching for the full press of his mouth over her again. "Do you know what you do to me, Sansa?" Another swipe – purposely slow. "How much I want you? Ache for you?" A moan into her cunt. "How hard you make me?" His face buried in her, a heady sigh making her push her hips brazenly toward his mouth. "Gods, just to taste you. Just to fucking _taste_ you – fuck, but I can hardly stand it sometimes. All you have to do is enter a room and I'm ready to take you, do you know that?"

Sansa winds a shaky hand into his hair, takes a soldiering breath, swallows down that ripe and useless shame, tugs his face up until he's looking at her, lips parted, eyes dark.

(Just a fall.)

"Then take me."

Jon blinks up at her, tongue darting out to wet his lips, fingers digging into her thighs painfully.

Sansa swallows tightly, fingers flexing in his hair. A deep breath in, a deep breath out. She tugs him up again. "Come here," she says, and he obeys, standing hastily, hands winding around her waist, hips sliding into the space between her legs easily.

She reaches for the laces of his breeches and hears the sharp intake of his breath at her ear. "And do you know what you do to me?" she whispers harshly, cheeks tinging pink even as the words pass her lips. She tugs at his laces impatiently, eyes fixed to the motion, so that she doesn't have to look at him when she says it. Her mouth dips into a frown, frustration marring her features.

Jon stills her restless hands at his now open breeches, his cock straining against the fabric, the hard length of him peeking out, almost free, and Sansa glances up at him, throat tight.

"Sansa," he breathes raggedly.

She stares at him, hard and demanding. "You said I could have it if I wanted it."

Jon's mouth opens –

Her hand slides into his breeches without warning.

Jon bucks against her touch, a sharp curse falling from his lips.

"I want it," she tells him, fingers hesitant as they stroke him, unsure, and yet determined.

Jon blows a hard breath through his lips, rocking into her strokes, his hands going to either side of her along the vanity, bracing him against her with his mouth at her bare shoulder. " _Fuck_ , Sansa," he growls.

She licks her lips, winds her other hand around his hip, presses her mouth to the shell of his ear. "I want you inside me," she whispers, trembling, before her courage can fail her.

It doesn't take more than that to get him moving. Jon shoves his breeches past his hips, cock springing free in her hand, and then he's dragging her hips toward him along the vanity, letting her line him up at her entrance before plunging deep in a single, full thrust, gasping at her mouth, stilling inside her for a moment as she winds her legs around his waist. She's urging him to move soon enough, and he winds a hand into her hair, draws her face back to watch her, the vanity table rattling with every thrust, her back pressing against the mirror in a sharp arch and he stays watching her, stays with his eyes fixed to hers, snarling as he fucks her.

_Please_ , she had said.

But beasts do not plead.

And Sansa realizes now that wolves are every bit the beast that dragons are.

* * *

"Should I be expecting you to return drowned in furs? Beard like a wilding? Perhaps a direwolf for a pet?" Rhaenys snaps as she crosses her arms and watches him.

Jon sighs as he tightens the straps of his cloak across his chest. Outside, the caravan waits for their departure, the Starks readying their horses. He looks up at his sister, at her narrowed eyes and thin frown. He shakes his head, sighing. He reaches for her arms, offers a conciliatory gaze. "I was...harsh with you the other day. I'm sorry."

She softens minutely, dark eyes searching his face. She looks so young suddenly, and Jon clears his throat, releasing her arms.

She will miss him, he knows. He questioned it the last few days, but the look she gives him now cements the idea without doubt. A part of him feels the wound of it, even now. "I will come back, Rhaenys, you have my word."

"And you always keep your word," she says hollowly, brushing a dark strand of hair from her face, glancing off to the far wall with a heavy sigh.

Jon watches her, not knowing what else there is to say between them.

"You know, you gave me your word once before. To always protect me." She throws her gaze back upon him, sharp now – demanding.

"Rhaenys," Jon begins, hesitant, warning.

"How can you protect me when you're gone?"

Jon ducks his head, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Rhaenys, please."

"Tell me, Jon," she demands again, voice tight.

Jon looks back up at her, hand falling from his face. "What have you to fear here? Huh? What do you need protecting from if not...if not _this?"_ He motions between them, voice breaking. "This thing between us that is _not natural_ , Rhaenys, you must know this. Perhaps, my leaving is best. I think you need the separation more than I do." He moves to step back, hands held as though in surrender, breath raking from him with his frustration and his regret, but she steps toward him, reaching for him, and he catches her wrists before she can grasp his face between her palms.

"Jon, you can't mean – "

"Don't," he seethes, hands tightening over her wrists.

"And why not?" she hisses, yanking her arms back, dragging him into her with his hands still at her wrists.

He collides with her and they stumble back, Jon pushing his arms out to hold her at bay once more.

She clenches her teeth at the space he keeps between them, features narrowed into sharpness, a harrowing glimpse of their father in her harsh beauty. A dark mirror. Jon shudders at the image.

"Why not, brother? Because _she_ is here now? Because _she_ takes my place?" A grated hiss, smacking of venom.

Jon grits his teeth, glowering at her. "Sansa's got nothing to do with this."

"Oh, 'Sansa', is it?" she mocks, tugging again, but his grip does not give.

"Rhaenys, stop."

She tugs again, and his grip loosens somewhat, if only not to bruise her. She takes advantage, winding her hands around his and dragging them to her waist, pressing her body against the hard plane of his chest, mouth at his ear suddenly. "You never could deny me before." She must delight in his gasp, his startled stillness, because Jon can feel her smile at his ear when she asks him, "So, what's changed, brother?"

Jon yanks himself from her, inadvertently shoving her away with the motion, and she rocks back into the table behind her. He wipes a hand down his face, chest heaving with his anger as he stalks away, stalks back, fairly nearly bellows at her. "Don't you fucking understand?"

Rhaenys grips at the table behind her, staring wide-eyed at him.

He closes the distance easily, chest tight with his rage, a harrowing guilt drowning him with a fierceness he's never felt before. His bones sing with it. "This isn't about her! This is about us. _Us_. And what we should have been from the start. What we _shouldn't_ have been. I mean – gods, Rhaenys, can't you see? Can't you see that this is _not_ how a sister should love her brother? Nor he her?"

Rhaneys gathers herself quickly, righting her silk skirts, glaring up at him with a gaze narrowed so quickly he almost misses the change. "A bit of Stark enlightenment?" she scoffs.

Jon closes his eyes, breathes deep, wipes a hand over his mouth. When he opens his eyes once more she's still glaring at him, still seething quietly. "Maybe they were the start. But they shouldn't have been. We should have known it was wrong well before they ever came here."

Rhaenys stays deathly still, voice eerily calm, barely a rattle of wind from her lungs. "Was helping me 'wrong'?"

It hurts. It hurts far more than Jon thought it would. "Gods, Rhaenys, I wasn't _helping_ you, can't you see?" he pleads, hand raking through his hair. "I was _hurting you -_ only making it worse, only marring you with yet another shame, even if you asked it of me and that was wrong of you, too, even if you won't admit it. Just look at what it's done to us. Look at what it's made of us!"

"It's made us stronger," she rebukes with an air of certainty, knuckles white where she grips the table edge behind her.

"It's made us vile!" he roars, quieting instantly, eyes wild, chest heaving. "This isn't - gods, Rhaenys, this isn't - " A shuddering breath, a shake of his head. "This isn't who I want to be." It's an anguished exhale that leaves him.

Rhaenys stares at him, considering, calculative. She takes a deep breath, doesn't take her hands from the table behind her, a steady anchor.

Something to keep from drowning.

Jon wipes a hand down his face, sighing with the weight of it. He glances to the door. To the air just outside, bright and sun-lit and waiting for him.

Just outside this suffocation of a conversation.

He glances back to her, shoulders sagging with the effort. "This isn't who I want to be," he says with some finality, a sort of finality that feels more like a beginning than an ending. Something of a birth. Brought bloody and screaming into the world. Dragged out into the open. A piercing wail, his first utterance. Eyes unused to the light.

But to cling to what was, is to die.

So, he will go screaming, wailing, into the light.

But he will go, nonetheless.

Because Jon Targaryen means to live.

"My, what a speech," Rhaenys says lowly, words rigid.

Jon blinks at her.

Rhaenys pushes from the table, finally standing on her own. Her silk skirts trail in her wake like a threat, and Jon remembers that she is a dragon, too. "Is it your pretty little wife that inspires such change in you, hmm? Such earnestness?" She scoffs, the sound harsh and biting. "Gods, what is it with her? Has she a golden cunt?"

Jon snarls at her, closing the distance between them swiftly, and Rhaenys looks up at him with a self-satisfied smirk, barely flinching beneath his dark, towering form.

"You would do well not to disgrace her in my presence," he growls.

"I would do 'well'," she mocks, lips thinning into a frown, "not to have to see her gods-damned _face_ for a few blessed moons."

"Have you no empathy?" he snaps, eyes boring into hers. "That, at least, she can claim to have for you."

"And what has she to empathize with?" Rhaenys asks shrewdly, eyes narrowed.

Jon stops, tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth.

Rhaenys studies him coldly, eyes flicking between his. "Tell me, brother," she says on a deadly whisper, taking a lone, warning step toward him. "What has she to empathize with?"

He takes a telling step back.

Rhaenys sucks a sharp breath through her teeth, hands curling into fists at her sides. Her dark visage takes on a shadow unlike he's ever seen before. "What have you told her?" she hisses in a voice like dragon's breath.

Jon swallows, chin tilting up. Something twists inside him. This voice of hers. This deadly stillness. This calm fury.

This is wrong. This is very, very wrong.

"Jon."

"She knows about Stannis' attack and...and the consequences that followed." He clamps his jaw shut after the words.

Rhaenys just stares at him, unblinking. Her mouth parts. Only air slips out.

Jon shuffles his weight to one leg, chest constricting at her quiet, her stillness. His anger dissipates easily, replaced with a voiceless worry, a keen tremble. He licks his lips, reaches for her. "Rhaenys – "

She slaps him.

His head whips with the force of it, biting and blinding and _sharp_. He reaches a hand to his reddened cheek, gaze slipping back to hers slowly, disbelievingly.

"How dare you," she seethes between clenched teeth, shoulders curling in on herself.

He stares at her, throat tight beneath the weight of words that can find no air. His hand falls from his cheek like a shadow.

"How _fucking_ _dare_ _you_."

"Rhaenys – "

She shoves him, full and abrupt, anger white-hot, and he stumbles back from the force of it. "That was not yours to tell!" she shouts at him, shoving again.

Jon can find no words. Only her name. Bitter and mumbled with regret, a flailing need, a battered stone against the raging rush of the river.

"How could you? How _could_ you?" she shrieks, tears blinding her suddenly, fists coming down hard on his chest.

Jon scrambles for her fists. "Rhaenys, I'm sorry, I'm _sorry_ , I didn't - I didn't think it – I'm sorry, Rhaenys, please!" His cries fall on deaf ears. She strikes at him again, nearly catching his jaw, and he has her by the wrists once more, captures her struggling from against his, backing her up into the table again, shaking his head as he swears to her, pleads with her -

_I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry_.

"It wasn't yours! It wasn't yours to tell! It was mine, do you hear me? It was mine! _Mine_! You cannot take that from me! You can't – you can't – " An agonized cry breaks from her lips, a shuddering gasp leaving her, and then Jon winds a hand into her hair, cradles her against him, and she slumps easily into his warmth, fists curling in his tunic, crying, pleading, _breaking_.

_I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry_.

As though it is enough.

Jon hushes her quietly, fingers caressing her hair, and she is his sister again, small and beaten down and lonely – _gods_ , so lonely.

"I'm sorry," he croaks into her hair.

She gurgles something amidst her cries, unintelligible.

Jon just holds her.

It takes her many moments, many long, tear-laced moments, before she eventually goes still in his arms.

It's a different sort of quiet that overtakes them then. A stifled kind. The kind he's never known with his sister before.

She pulls from him slowly, hands uncurling from his tunic, brushing away the dark strands of hair that had clung to her cheeks with the tears. She wipes her eyes, takes a breath, blinks away the remaining wetness. And when she looks at him it isn't with the eyes of a sister.

No.

There's the curl of dragon's teeth to her smile, the promise of flame to her stare.

"You think you're so _good_ now, don't you? So _reformed_?" It's a quiet breath of air, barely a whisper, her voice growing steadily, as steadily as Jon's heart is dropping. "But did you tell her how you fucked your own sister, hmm?" she presses, acid on her tongue, bite behind the words.

Jon stares at her, breath tight in his lungs. His hands fall to his sides uselessly.

"No," she laughs, sharp and clipped. "No, I'm betting not. How convenient for you, brother. Sharing your family's sins, their _shame_ , while omitting your own. How terribly, terribly _good_ of you," she snarls. "Did you think she would love you for it?"

Jon swallows tightly, the words knocking the wind from him. He stumbles back a step, eyes riveted to her, hands hovering uncertainly in the air.

Rhaenys wipes at her eyes once more, draws a deep breath, clears the ache from her lungs. "Don't worry, she'll not hear of it from me. I know what harm this sort of knowledge can do to us." She swings her sharp gaze back to his. "But do not think this makes you clean, brother. Do not think this makes you any less 'vile' than you've always been." She huffs a laugh, face contorting, as though wounded, pained. "You'll always be a bastard, won't you?" she says scathingly, fists clenching at her sides.

Jon opens his mouth, voice dying.

She stalks from the room then, leaves him to his strangled words. He leans back against the wall, a hand going out to brace himself.

A deep breath in. A deep breath out.

His hand bunches into a fist at the wall.

Fucking _drowning_ in it.

Jon squeezes his eyes shut, tries to rein in his breathing, the thunderous hammering of his heart, the terrible quake in his knees.

He opens his eyes to the ceiling, the high, vaulted ceiling. Focuses on a spot. Blinks back the wetness. Clutches a hand at his collar, dragging the fabric down, practically tearing at it. Too hot. Too heavy. This stupid cloak. This stupid _fucking_ cloak. He tears at the straps, rips it from his shoulders. Throws it to the floor.

He can't breathe. Can't fucking _breathe_.

This suffocation.

Jon glances to the door. Just outside they're waiting. Just outside _she_ is waiting.

He closes his eyes to the rush. Tries to remember her smile and her touch and her laugh, that blessed thing, that rare, _blessed_ thing.

It sounds tainted now.

A lady should never love a bastard, after all, and Jon has learned that years ago.

A beast, his sister had called him in jest.

Jon leans his head back against the wall, a ripe, raw shame filling him.

Perhaps the true jest is that he always thought he wasn't one.


	9. Constant and Weathered

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “She sighs, and it takes all of her. ‘Can we not be happy?’” - Jon and Sansa. Like the curve of the horizon, when the moon breaks from beneath its bow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not gonna lie, I spent a whole thirty seconds wondering what I would say in defense of Jon's dirty mouth and the general thirst of this chapter, before I realized:
> 
> You heathens don't even want an apology. And I am more than okay with that. Mah people, stay strong.

Disclaimer: I own nothing, I make no money.

From Instep to Heel

Chapter Nine: Constant and Weathered

" _She sighs, and it takes all of her. 'Can we not be happy?'"_ \- Jon and Sansa. Like the curve of the horizon, when the moon breaks from beneath its bow.

* * *

"Have you seen our sister yet? She will miss your departure," Aegon says as he surveys the gathering crowd atop the stairs, and further below, where the Stark caravan is gathered and readying. The Tyrell procession will follow in two days time, though the Lady Margaery travels with her betrothed.

Jon steps up beside his brother, fastening a riding glove over his wrist with a vehemence that does not escape Aegon. "I think that is her intention," he mumbles.

Aegon glances at him out of the corner of his eye. "An argument?"

Jon sighs, steadying the breath in his chest. He gives no answer, focusing on his gloves instead.

Aegon hums a note of amusement, glancing back out over the sunlit crowd. "She will forgive you. She always does."

"Not this time," he says, and it's a sundering realization that hits him then. "And perhaps that is best."

Aegon gives him a sharp look.

She is right, in the end – about his omission. It is the game he has learned to play, after all, and they taught it to him best.

What a Targaryen wants, they take. In whatever manner works. He's been subject often enough to learn how to master the strings himself. His family is clearly not above deception, clearly not above manipulation at its finest, in its dearest form.

Love is just another bundle of strings in this House, after all.

Give the right tug, and oh, how they dance.

Jon grinds his jaw, blinking back the hot sting of salt at his lids.

How Sansa had _looked_ at him. So earnest. So invested. He had her, without doubt. He had her with his words and his stories and his misleading openness.

He had her with his falsities.

And what a pretty light he'd painted himself in. The poor, unloved bastard. Only needing her faith. Only needing her affections, her attention. Only needing her trust.

What a tale he's woven for himself.

(And isn't that the cruelest string to cut?)

But if he should cut another? If he should pull the wool back, douse the smokescreen, lay it bare before her? If he should tell her what sinful things he's done in his sister's bed?

Would it matter that he did it not out of romantic love or desire, but out of brotherly affection? A misconstrued sense of duty? A need to tend to the wounds his broken sister had only ever dared to show _him_? As though he alone held her balm?

And this, he reminds himself, is just another game.

As he grew older, Jon began to recognize Rhaenys' baiting words, her ways of guilting him into it, her need to stir something in him she could control, and tether, and break. Some part of him perhaps always knew this, but was loathe to take it from her, to steal what limited agency she felt she still had left in this world. He could not, in good conscience, trust anyone else to do it for her, and she would not open to anyone else regardless.

No.

She would have withered away in silence, otherwise.

And now, Jon doesn't know which fate is worse.

He only knows that his sister has learned to hurt as well as she's _been_ hurt.

(He finds the sourness on his tongue tastes surprisingly like hate – and he loathes himself all the more for it. Oh, to be this low, to hate her so, even when he's only ever wanted to be a brother.

To be needed.

And yet, she twists even that.)

Jon closes his eyes, fingers curling in the leathers at his arm, snapping a clasp closed.

It doesn't matter, he finds, in the end. It doesn't matter at all why he did it in the first place. Sansa would not discern his sin from that of common perversion. And he'd not expect her to.

Jon thinks of Daenerys and Aegon's marriage, of the grumbled misgivings surrounding the betrothal at first, the distaste of the court, even as it was kept behind tempered tongues. And then he thinks of his mad grandfather's own sister-wife. The filth they whisper of such a union, years after the fact, with hindsight no one questions now.

No, even as Targaryens, Rhaenys would not escape the shame, the ridicule.

And certainly neither would the North.

Jon clenches his jaw, gloved hands sliding back to his sides in loose fists.

He will not dishonor Sansa or her family before the seven kingdoms. He will not make public this transgression. But even still, it festers in his chest, this need, this startling clarity –

He must tell her.

And yet, doing so invites another betrayal.

" _Don't worry, she'll not hear of it from me. I know what harm this sort of knowledge can do to us."_

If Rhaenys is not like to speak of it to Sansa, then does she expect him to keep his silence as well? As he should have done about her past with Stannis' attack? Is it not another betrayal of trust to reveal this sin without Rhaenys' consent as well?

Jon growls his frustration, eyes snapping open.

No matter his choice, someone gets hurt. Someone bears the wound.

(But is it selfish of him to hope it is not Sansa?)

"You are part of this family," Aegon tells him at his side, as though it is a reminder, and not a comfort. He glances to him, violet eyes flashing in the midday light. "That is not a fact in dispute."

The words should be a relief, and where they might have been in the past, they are now only a noose.

_Part of this family_.

How he'd longed for it once.

How he resents it now.

"Prince Jon," Robb calls below, a hint of sarcasm to the title, and Jon lets himself smirk at the address, Sansa's doing no doubt. He glances to his brother beside him.

Aegon cocks his head, hands winding behind his back. "I'll see to Rhaenys. You see to your wife – and to the North."

Jon looks at him, mouth parting, and then closing swiftly. "You'll have your hands full with Daenerys."

"When has she ever _not_ been a handful?" he muses with a laugh.

Jon nods, throat flexing with his swallow. He glances down the steps once more. Glances back to his brother.

"Go," Aegon says, voice smooth and commanding. "Do our father proud. Give my blessing to the happy couple. And come back to us." He stretches out a hand.

Something clicks into place then – somewhere inside.

Jon takes the out-stretched hand quietly, a heavy breath leaving him. He glances up the steps where their father waits, a subtle nod and a fond smile his only farewell. Jon looks back to his brother, giving a final squeeze of their clasped arms, face a stony visage. "I shall," he says, and then he turns.

Beneath the glare of the high sun, Jon watches as Sansa pushes back the veil over the window of the carriage she shares with Lady Margaery. She meets his eyes as her gaze wonders the crowd. And then she smiles at him.

Jon clenches his fists at his side, returning a stiff smile. He reaches for his horse as his mount crosses between them, obscuring his view of her. Once he's atop his horse he glances back to her, only to find the veil slipped back into place once more, her image gone from him.

And so, Jon looks North.

* * *

The journey North seems far longer than the journey South had been, Sansa finds, though they travel the same roads, make the same stops, encounter the same slowly worsening weather. Perhaps it is just her anxiousness, her desire to see home once more, those white-dusted hills, the high grey walls of Winterfell, and yes, of course – her mother's face.

To have her wrap her arms around her once more, to press her smile into her hair, to laugh, to cup her cheeks, to hold her and hold her and _hold_ her – Sansa is near sick with longing for it. She'd not thought to see her mother again for many years, maybe even not at all, if she'd been saddled with a husband reluctant to release her from King's Landing – her new, permanent home.

Sansa pulls the curtain back on the carriage window and glances out, eyes fixing to Jon instantly, his figure dark in the early morning light. He's talking across to Robb as they sit atop their horses, trotting steadily down the King's Road. He's in all black leathers again, as he usually is, and the cloak that spreads from his shoulders over the hind of his horse is threaded with red, bright curls like smoke along its edges. Sansa frowns at the sight, dropping the curtain back, returning to her sewing.

(She imagines him in the warm greys of home once they make it there, in the practical browns, maybe even the deep blues that Robb sometimes wears – majestic and poised.)

Her smile returns, soft and unconscious, her fingers working the needle with a practiced touch.

Yes, this husband of hers had not chained her to the capital, glittering and gorgeous and gold as it is. And there's always been a different sort of beauty to Winterfell, one she hadn't thought to appreciate until it was filling her dreams back in King's Landing, burrowing a home between her ribs, silent and yearning, its presence fluttering against her heart like the steady fall of snow.

Sometimes the wintery visage is pierced by a familiar sisterly screech, and Sansa has to roll her eyes – caught half between wakefulness and sleep – at the idea that even here, in her sweet reminiscences, Arya tramples through her dreams like a wild thing.

She remembers her then, cheeks muddied, skirts torn, and her chest constricts. She remembers how Arya had clenched a fist in her skirt when she'd said her farewells, gaze drawn done to the grip, Stark grey eyes hazed over with a salt-sheen she would not admit to, a frown marring her lips. "You've got your prince now, do you?" she had said, spat almost.

Sansa had looked down at her, lip caught between her teeth. "I shall miss you," she had said, voice breaking, a gentle hand brushing a dark, wayward strand of hair behind her little sister's ear.

Arya had finally looked up then, met Sansa's tear-filled gaze with her own heated one. "And I shall finally have some peace," she'd said, chin lifted, though quivering.

Sansa had only smiled, bracing her lips at her forehead, whispering her farewell against her skin, and then Arya was pulling from her, turning away and rushing back through the hall, a hand at her mouth. She'd watched her flee in silence, her mother's hand coming to rest along her shoulder.

Even now, Sansa feels a pang at the farewell, at all the things left unsaid between them. She is her sister, after all, her _only_ sister, and for all the taunting that they've thrown at each other, for all the pinches and the pointed fingers and the scathing retorts, it isn't Robb's bed that Arya climbs into when the winter storms are harsh at night. It isn't Bran's or Rickon's or Mother and Father's.

It's hers.

Or at least, it _was_ hers.

She wonders now, suddenly, what her sister clings to in the dark of night, now that she isn't there.

Sansa pushes the needle through the thick leather with a forceful hand, her breath weighing in her chest, rattling out like a gale.

And Rickon. The little thief.

Sansa chuckles at the memory.

He always thought he was so subtle, so quick-handed. But she'd seen every lemon cake he'd swiped from her plate. And more than that, she'd _let him_. Little Rickon, who she used to sing to sleep and who she once held a cold compress to his forehead when he was sick with the coughs and who she used to scold when he came to her with tangled, muddy hair before his bath and who called her the prettiest lady in all of Winterfell, cheeks rosy and teeth crooked. Little Rickon who's become not so little anymore.

She remembers the tell-tale crack in his voice when he'd bid her farewell, the way he stood almost to her own height, the way his jaw curved, strong and taut, like their father's.

And then suddenly she thinks of Jon. How old he must have been when Stannis attacked seven years ago. The horrors he must have seen. The men he must have killed.

All but Rickon's age.

All but a boy still, on the edge of manhood, on the cusp of something greater.

Something heavier.

Sansa pricks her finger. She sucks in a breath, shaking her finger out, and then bringing it to her mouth, glancing back out the window with her blood-tipped finger between her lips, gaze catching only glimpses of passing horses and men and carts through the slip in the fluttering curtain.

She pulls her finger out, takes a look.

The blood has stopped beading along the edge. And so, she sets back to work.

In the following days along the King's Road, she doesn't miss how Jon seems to gravitate toward Robb. They spend most of the day riding alongside each other, trading quips and stories and laughs. It's a strange thing, to see him laugh. An intimate thing.

(She remembers the laugh he'd puffed out from between her thighs when she'd startled at his mouth there that first time – how her chest had constricted at the sight, at the feel of it, at the sudden, inexplicable need to hear such a sound only unto her.)

And sometimes when they break for rest, she finds Jon with Bran, training him with a stern hand, reminding him that this break in his squiring is not an excuse for letting his skill languish. Bran meets the challenge with a passion, focused in his desire to continue growing, to show his intent, in a way, Sansa muses, to prove himself to Jon. As a younger brother might to an older one. As he used to do for Robb. Sansa finds the realization warms her, this image of then sparring in the small courtyard of tents, Jon laughing when he parries easily, a ruffle to Bran's hair that sends her brother fuming, coming back at him with renewed vigor, meeting every nonchalant thrust of Jon's sword with every fervent one of his, beaming beneath the sparse praise, eyes glinting with something Sansa is too overcome to name.

Is this what Jon would look like as a father?

The thought has her hands going to her stomach unconsciously, anxious beyond words, a flutter of something lighting within her as she watches them, hopeful in a way she'd never expected to find herself.

But Jon is still reticent too much of the trip for her not to notice. She is attuned to his moods now, cognizant of his every minute expression, and she startles somewhat, at how fixed her attention is to him. Always watching. Always anticipating. Her skin thrums at his presence, at every glance he gifts her with, every bow of his mouth when he says her name – so much so that even a polite, courteous "My lady" from his lips has her near-winded.

She doesn't recognize this need in her, this craving. It's a tangled mess of depravity and tenderness. The heat that flares in her when he helps her from her horse, hands at her waist, chest brushing hers when she slips down from the saddle, a puff of his breath hot at her lips before he turns away. And yet, there is also the cool rootedness when he takes her by the elbow, steering her into the pitched tent where they dine with her family, his fingers gentle and urging, his other hand already reaching for her chair, a barely-there smile lingering at the edges of his lips.

She wants to wind her arms around his neck and hold him to her then, but she refrains, conscious of their company, and so they set to their meal, with Robb and her father laughing over some pointed remark Margaery makes in Theon's retelling of a story, Bran speaking around a mouthful of ham that has Sansa tutting and wiping at his chin, Jon smiling into his wineglass as he watches it all.

She wonders, suddenly – perhaps even dangerously - if he's ever smiled like that around his own siblings.

A fierce lance of protectiveness rushes through her at the thought, a possessiveness she hadn't known was in her, her hand curling around his wrist when she's ready to excuse herself from the table, and Jon nods at her, moving to stand with her, when her hand moves to his shoulder to still him.

"Stay," she says, eyes roving over her family, lost in conversation and unaware of their exchange. "Enjoy yourself." She stands then, bids her father a goodnight, an affectionate look sent Margaery's way, and then a kiss to Bran's forehead, laughing at the way he pushes from her. Robb and Theon raise their cups at her, bidding her goodnight, and she slips from the tent with a last backwards glance at her husband, his eyes dark as they follow her form.

She is practically shaking when she makes it to their shared tent, ripe with anticipation, but when he finally returns to their bed, drowsy with wine, it is the same as it's been for days – with him sliding in behind her, falling swiftly to sleep, and Sansa is left aching at the absence of his heat.

Something has changed since they left the capital, and he will not share it with her.

That first night of their travels, the both of them are so exhausted they fall asleep nearly upon hitting the furs. It is the same the following night. And then, day by day, Sansa grows accustomed to the exhaustive state of travel. Sometimes they are lucky enough to find an inn along the King's Road, but more often than not, they spend their nights in pitched tents, extravagant of course, as would be for the lords of the North and a royal prince – desks and furs and chests and all the comforts she could ask for, considering. But it is not the comfort she needs.

At first, she takes Jon's silence in the evenings when they retire to their own tent, as a sign of his exhaustion. She cannot imagine what riding astride for hours must feel like when she's already exhausted by her carriage rides, even if Margaery is entertaining company. Sometimes, Jon watches her when she sits at the vanity, the bronze mirror reflecting his image back at her. He sits along the edge of the bed, head cocked, gazing at her as she slides the brush through her hair, her eyes sometimes flickering up to meet his, a soft pink dusting her cheeks. He is never unabashed in his gaze, never apologetic. And yet, he does not reach for her like he used to.

Sometimes she turns to him, ready to slip the robe past her shoulders in open invitation, only to find him turning into the furs already, a heavy sigh leaving him. She goes to bed frustrated these nights, more so than she cares to admit.

When she wakes in the morning to find him curled around her, his half-hard cock pressing into her backside, his hand just below her breast, his sleep-heavy breath hot at the nape of her neck, she moves on instinct. She knows the steps to this dance well enough by now. A steady rock. A grip at his hip. A breathy moan. But then -

He pulls from her. Leaves her cold and stunned and untouched. She glances back to watch him striding away toward the wash basin, a hand at his head, the other braced against the basin. He takes a steadying breath, splashes water on his face, doesn't look at her. Sansa frowns at the image, at the absence of him, a part of her keening at the loss, fists bunching in the furs at her chest. She flings the bedsheets aside and gets about starting her day, throat tight with unspokens, an unfamiliar ache settling into her, throbbing almost imperceptibly between her legs, and then branching out, filling her, fastening to her bones with a heady, skin-tingling loneliness.

She needs him. Needs his breath in her ear and his hands on her skin and even just – gods, just his _eyes_. Just his gaze on her.

Just to look at him. To watch him watching her.

She's bereft, she finds. Suddenly and cleanly.

The next night she goes to bed bare, not even bothering with the robe or a shift, and Jon sucks a sharp breath through his teeth, eyes following her form as she slips beneath the covers. She turns demurely onto her side, keeping her smirk from his view, hands curling along her pillow in her anticipation.

A breath follows. And then another. And another. A steady beat of silence. No movement from behind her.

Sansa shifts to glance over her shoulder.

Jon is staring at the floor, hands bunched into fists, jaw clenched. There's something anguished about his look, something far heavier than his control weighing him down, and Sansa sits up at the sight, the sheet slipping past her bare breasts and she doesn't bother to cover up, doesn't even notice the shift, eyes only for her husband, for the sharp way the candlelight glints off his face when he looks to her finally, her soft exhale of his name finally drawing his attention back.

They stay staring at each other for many long moments. And then he's drawing the covers back, slipping in behind her, his mouth to her shoulder, a delicate hushing sound easing from his throat.

"It's alright, Sansa," he urges, a breathy whisper against her skin, his hands easing her back down until she's braced to his chest again, the familiar position no longer comforting or arousing but... _unnerving_. She realizes, suddenly, that she cannot see his face like this. Cannot glean his intention, or his emotions, if she ever could from the start.

It kindles a new frustration, curling hot in her gut. She grinds her teeth behind her thin frown.

"Sleep," he tells her, nosing at her hair, hand winding around her stomach.

And sleep she does, though restlessly.

In the morning, he is already gone. And so the days go.

When they finally lay together again, Sansa finds it is startlingly closer to their first few times abed than their last. Jon is all efficiency, driving her to orgasm quickly, with impatient fingers at her clit, pumping into her with a steady, near practiced sort of rhythm, finding his release with barely a grunt at her shoulder.

He does not grip her with the same neediness, does not lick at her throat with the hunger she has grown to crave, does not whisper his filthy mutterings of encouragement that she finds, jarringly, she has grown accustomed to – _desirous of_ , even.

She misses his commanding touch, his sinful words, his mouth working her to completion with a surety and possessiveness that brings her to howling.

She misses moaning his name at his ear and watching him come undone beneath her touch.

She misses bringing him to breathlessness, misses the look in his eye when he spills inside her, his grip desperate at her hips, his mouth braced just a breath above hers.

She misses watching the exact moment his control snaps, the moment he becomes lost in her, only breath and touch and heat and _her_.

She doesn't pretend the power in such a moment isn't almost suffocating in its intensity, isn't exactly the kind of thing that has her writhing helplessly beneath him, lost to it herself.

There's something intoxicating about bringing a man to his knees, especially one such as Jon.

To admit to that surrender, to give yourself up to it – Sansa wants it, desperately. She wants it more than she has words to express.

She needs him, after all. She needs him here with her.

She will not suffer this heat alone.

"My lord," she says one night, fresh from her bath, only a loose robe adorning her figure.

Jon glances to her from where he sits at the edge of the bed, boot in hand as he tears it off. He gives her a grunt of acknowledgement, but nothing more. He returns to removing his other boot without so much as a pause.

Sansa huffs, stepping toward him.

He glances up at her proximity, the thin silk of her robe fluttering into view.

She looks down at him.

"My lady?" he asks gruffly, hand slipping from his boot, letting it fall to the floor unattended. His gaze is hard and imperceptible.

It makes Sansa's eyes narrow further. And then she sees something flicker in his gaze, a look she has never seen, and the shadows are dim in their tent, the air sparse between them and she is full, suddenly, full just from watching him, her breath hitching in her chest at the way it racks through her – this perverse kind of satiation. And yet, she is needy – still. Her hand comes up to cup his jaw, fingers delicate at his beard. "Where have you gone, my lord?" she whispers, almost unconsciously, and she blinks as the words leave her, suddenly aware of their weight. But she keeps her hand to his jaw, keeps her gaze to his.

This, she will not relinquish.

Jon stares up at her, jaw clenching. "I don't know what you mean," he says, and Sansa is _angry_ suddenly.

White-hot and spitting with it.

"Don't pretend," she snaps, seething with it – this unnamable rage, this haunting need. "Don't pretend you aren't keeping something from me."

Jon continues to stare up at her, a ragged sigh leaving him, and his exhaustion only makes her angrier, though she doesn't know why.

She pulls her touch from him, stalking back, bracing her arms across her chest in her heated sigh. "If you'd thought to marry a simple woman, then I am sorry to disappoint you," she bites out, shoulders wracking with their shudder. She hears Jon rising behind her.

"I don't know what you want from me," he says, voice hollow.

She whirls on him. "I am your wife, Jon, your _wife_. Do me the courtesy of not feigning ignorance when I ask for openness between us."

Jon stares at her, chest heaving. His hands curls into fists at his side, uncurl, curl again.

Sansa watches it in keen disquiet.

"And if such openness would hurt you?" he asks, voice hoarse.

She blinks at the question. She'd asked for openness, after all, not appeasement. And with such openness is bound to come hurt, in some regard. She knows this. She _knows_ this. And yet...

The way he says it.

As though he _knows_ it will hurt her.

Whatever it is that's been weighing on him since he left King's Landing, since he struck out from that strangling, hook-nailed, dragon's nest he's known all his life –

Sansa wonders if it is not kinder to feign ignorance.

She watches him in the flickering candlelight, watches the way his gaze does not move from her face, intent and warring.

And her home, white-hilled and snow-capped, just over the next ledge, around the next bend, so _close –_

Her eyes burn.

"Can we not be happy?" she asks, without knowing the words have left her.

Jon's brows furrow at the words, and he takes a step toward her.

She sighs, and it takes all of her. "Can we not be happy?"

He makes his way to her then, hands coming up to brace along her arms. His stare is dark and unrelenting, and she finds she cannot look away. "Is it openness or happiness you want, my lady? Because in my experience, the two never go hand in hand."

Sansa's mouth opens, closes, opens again. She tears her gaze away, eyes fixing to the steady rise and fall of his chest, focused on the loose tie of laces at his tunic. "Why are you doing this?" she murmurs, eyes stinging.

Jon's hands fall from her arms. "Don't be so naïve, my lady."

Her gaze snaps up to his at that. "Is it naivety to expect honesty from my husband?"

Jon growls, his own frustration bubbling forth, and she sees it flashing in his eyes when he snaps at her, his whole bearing taking it on, like a shadow, a halestorm – an invited winter. "You want honesty? Is that what you want? Fine. Yes, my father was loathe to send me North, and not, I assure you, out of any sort of affection," he sneers, and Sansa feels the bite of it, right there in her chest. "He wants my eyes and ears in the North, wants me to be a good little _spy_ for him, to make sure the North, your _father_ , is keeping their place. And _yes_ , I convinced him to send me on just that reasoning." It's seething from him now, overtaking him, and he's stepping toward her.

That winter – it's rife in her now, beating down on her with his words, a whipping frost.

Sansa retreats a step on instinct, eyes never leaving his, mouth hanging open in a tremble.

But he doesn't stop – could _never_ stop. And somehow, Sansa thinks she should have known this.

Jon wipes at his mouth, the breath hissing from him, teeth gnashing. "And yes, I used it as an opportunity. Yes, _I_ wanted to go. _Me_!For my own self. Because part of me wants to know what it's like, this _home_ you speak of so fondly, this _family_ you can't stop prattling on about, a place that could have been _my_ home, and am I supposed to be _happy_ about it? Am I supposed to see my mother here? In the trees and the hills and the gods-damned fucking snow?" he snarls, incredulous. "Because I don't! I don't see her at all. I see _nothing_ here I recognize. And _yes_ , I wanted to go North so I could take you out of there. Don't pretend you haven't seen the way my brother looks at you."

At this, Sansa opens her mouth, ready to speak, but nothing comes – and she wonders if maybe it hadn't been willful ignorance from the start.

Or maybe, just maybe, the part of her that grows more possessive and needful each day, secretly revels in it.

(But she won't let herself linger on such a thought – not here, not now.)

"Did you think I liked it?" he growls, advancing even further, until she is backed into the vanity.

Her hand fumbles for the edge behind her, his whole presence bearing down on her.

His dark gaze flicks down to her heaving chest for a moment, his tongue darting out to wet his lips. " _Yes_ , I wanted you out of there, because you are a pawn to him, make no mistake. Something to lord over me, as he always has, even when I didn't know it. And _yes_ , I wanted you for myself – _all_ for myself – without my brother's roving eyes or my father's insidious designs. And _yes_ , I had a falling out with Rhaenys just before we left. I couldn't get far enough away. From the shame and the anger and the fucking – the fucking – gods!" he bellows, a hand through his hair, a shake of his head, eyes dark and narrowed at her. "Because each one of them – _each fucking one of them_ \- wants to hook their claws into me somehow. Wants to keep me there. Never free. And I _know_ that now, I _see_ that, believe me, and I'm - I'm trying to – I'm trying to reconcile the man I was with the man you so _clearly_ want me to be and gods, Sansa, but I - I don't know how to do that!"

He's panting by the end of it, and so is she. Staring up at him, her eyes wide, her chest heaving, she feels her throat close up, the words laying slaughtered there with her air.

She thinks she sees it even now – just like when they're abed – the moment his control snaps.

It's a suspended moment. A shred of time. Everything taut and blinding and at the tip of her fingers. And then instantly – sundering apart.

(And this is where she stops pretending – where she finally admits that it's _exactly_ what she'd wanted from the start.)

Jon suck s a sharp breath in, and then it comes tumbling down. His hands fumble for her robe. "Don't act like you don't want something from me as well," he snarls, tearing at the silk tie, yanking it open.

"Jon," she admonishes weakly, half-heartedly, hands scrambling for his chest, for purchase.

He pushes the robe back hastily, hands moving for her waist, breath heavy when he presses against her. "So fucking pretentious about it. All your little speeches about honesty. Well, here's a touch for you, _my lady_ ," he snaps, and the way he growls the address has her arching into his touch, breath hitching, skin burning beneath his rough palms. "You wanted me out of there just as much. Wanted me away from them, my family. Wanted me all to yourself. And why?" His thumbs brush over her ribcage, his breath easing from him in a heavy sigh as his eyes trail the motion, winding back down her waist, taut with a precarious restraint, practically shaking against her.

Sansa is flush with the excitement of it, her legs already parting on instinct.

Jon seems to notice, pressing his hips to hers with a rumble in his chest, one hand snaking up to curl around the nape of her neck, craning her head back with a fistful of her hair in his grip. "I think I know why."

Sansa gasps at the sudden jerk of his hand in her hair, fingers curling at his chest, mouth parted in surprise, but not pain. She trembles against him, body racked with a wave of heat, and she whimpers when he presses his mouth to her temple, his breath breaking over the shell of her ear in a hot pant.

"Be honest then, Sansa. You want me to fuck you now, don't you?" he growls.

"Yes," she whispers instantly, and maybe she should be ashamed of the quickness with which she admits it, but she can't find it in herself to care.

Parts of her are all knotted up in the words he's shared tonight, in his heated vexation, but the way he's tearing the robe from her and palming at her thighs has her mind going blessedly blank.

And maybe this is their way.

Maybe neither of them are very good at talking. And she wants to be, she does, but she also can't help the way he brings her to muteness with just a glance, just a touch. She can't help the way that talking only ever seems easier when they are sweat-slicked and sated and half-delirious in their vulnerability.

Maybe that's just when the walls come down easier.

Sansa claws at him without shame now, pulling the tunic from his breeches impatiently. "Yes," she mutters again, "Yes, I want you to fuck me."

Maybe there will be time yet for all that honesty to bare to light. But it starts with not pretending anymore.

A sound rumbles in his chest, his hand tightening in her hair, and he's turning them swiftly toward the bed, pushing her back with a frantic touch. He nips at her throat, voice hoarse when he tells her, "Get on the bed."

She falls back unceremoniously, sliding up the bed a touch, keeping herself braced on her elbows. Jon stares down at her, reaching over his back and pulling the tunic over his head, tossing it aside easily. "Spread your legs," he commands lowly, voice gruff, hands unbuckling his belt without taking his eyes from hers.

Sansa whines in the back of her throat but does as he says, thighs quaking already as she spreads them slowly, watching as his dark gaze falls between her legs instantly.

"That's it," he rumbles, dragging the belt from his breaches and dropping it atop his tunic. "Let me see that beautiful, wet cunt."

"Jon," she moans, hands gripping the sheets beneath her.

He meets her eyes momentarily. "Wider," he says, voice barely above a growl.

Sansa drops her head back, eyes sliding closed, even as she opens her legs wider for him, spread so utterly indecently before his gaze. She feels his hands winding around her thighs and she looks back in time to find him kneeling at the edge of the bed just before he yanks her hips to him, mouth lowering to her. "Let me see how wet you are for me," he mumbles appreciatively, before his tongue is swiping up her cunt greedily.

Sansa releases a short, bitten-off yelp, hands curling in the sheets, back arching when he pushes his face deeper, a long moan buried in her cunt. He laps her up eagerly, almost savagely, fingers digging into her thighs, tongue working over her clit with a single-minded intensity, fervent and messy, groaning his arousal with every thrust of her hips into his mouth, with every sigh that leaves her lips, every twist of her hand in his curls as he thrusts his tongue into her cunt, licking her up. He's relentless as he pushes her closer to the edge, chasing her peak, tonguing her as though her release were his own, desperate and hungry, sucking her clit into his mouth with a devotion that nearly cripples her when her peak hits her abruptly, far quicker than she'd expected, and she's crying out, ankles locking around his head, keeping his mouth to her cunt as she gushes against his tongue.

Jon takes it eagerly, licking her still, tongue sliding up her slit to gather the slickness there, moaning appreciatively when he pulls back, swallowing her wetness down.

Sansa is hazy in the aftermath, legs unlocking from around his neck, muscles quaking, and vaguely, she recognizes Jon's firm hands urging her to move, turning her over. She complies easily, moaning softly, still lost in the little aftershocks of her orgasm.

"Want to be fucked, do you?" he asks gruffly, untying the laces of his breeches.

Sansa glances over her shoulder from where she lays atop the furs, watching him drag his breeches down. She barely manages a nod in answer, still winded from her peak. Jon grips at her hip, tugging her toward him. "Get up," he urges.

Sansa moves her knees under her, sitting up with some effort, and then gasping when Jon yanks her back by the hip against him, his other hand going around her throat. His mouth is at her ear then, hand flexing over her throat, grinding her back against his length with his other hand. "Want to have my cock inside you, huh? Bet you're still gushing for it, still absolutely soaked for me." His hand winds from around her hip down between her legs, fingers sliding over her wetness, and Sansa jerks at the sensation, still sensitive, but she can't help the moan that sifts from between her lips.

Jon groans into her hair, fingers slipping into her, arching her back against his cock with a steady pump. "That's it, Sansa, so fucking wet for me. So fucking _wet_ , gods," he moans, a sharp breath sucked through his teeth. "You're absolutely drenched," he growls against her, pushing her back to the bed so that she rests on her knees and elbows, hand slipping from her throat.

"Jon," she huffs, writhing beneath him, lip caught between her teeth.

He mouths at her shoulder, teeth catching along the skin. "I know," he breathes against her, hand guiding his cock to her entrance, and then thrusting in without warning, filling her fully, and Sansa rocks back from the force of it, moaning into the sheets, clenching around him. "Oh _fuck_ , fuck, you're so tight," he mutters, already drawing out, and then plunging back in. He lowers himself over her back, keeping his mouth to her ear, knees knocking her legs further apart, driving into her forcefully.

Sansa mewls beneath him, toes curling, mouth tipping open in a broken cry. "Gods, Jon, just like that," she manages through wet pants.

"You like that, don't you?" he growls at her ear, pace quickening at her fervent nodding, his breath catching when he snarls at her, "You like getting fucked by a bastard, don't you?"

"Yes," she cries out, pushing back into him. "Yes, Jon, _please_."

His fingers dig bruises into her hip. "You like when my filthy, bastard mouth is on that pretty little cunt, huh? When I'm tongue-fucking you? Gods, that cunt – that wet, fucking – _fuck,_ but you taste so good, Sansa. Taste so fucking good – that soaking wet cunt of yours." And then his hand is moving back to her folds, circling her clit in their frantic fucking, and she's tearing at the sheets, moaning at the sinful heat of his words, nearly buckling beneath the strength of his thrusts, and then his hand is at her mouth, and she's blinking back the haze, still jostling from his thrusts, eyes blinking blearily open to find his glistening fingers before her.

"Lick," he murmurs darkly, slamming into her still, and Sansa's mind blanks out in bliss.

She licks – without reason or thought.

Jon groans deeply, a throaty sound of satisfaction, wet at the nape of her neck, and she yearns for more, _keens_ for it.

She wraps her hand around his to take his fingers into her mouth.

Jon chokes back a noise of surprise, grunting into her shoulder, hips stuttering in their pace. " _Fuck_ , Sansa, what are you – gods, yes – yes, suck for me, Sansa," he pants out, pumping his fingers into her mouth steadily now.

She tastes herself on him. It's not an altogether unpleasant taste. But it's striking, and heady, and she feels the way he shudders against her when she takes his fingers between her lips, hollowing her cheeks to suck as he'd urged her to.

"Oh gods, Sansa, yes, just like that. Just like that. Fuck, but to see you sucking my cock like that..." he groans out.

A rush of something powerful lances through her at the idea, unpleasant at first but then –

The way he ruts relentlessly into her just at the thought, the helpless sounds he makes at her ear when she takes his fingers deeper into her mouth – it's startlingly intoxicating.

"Would you let me do that, hmm? Let me slip my cock between those pretty lips just like this?"

Sansa squeezes her eyes shut, back arching, moaning around his fingers.

His hips slam into hers ruthlessly, pressing her further into the furs, a snarl at her ear, breath hitching, his sweat-slicked chest pressed to her back. "Let me fuck your mouth, hmm? Let me cum down your throat – nggh, fuck, tell me, Sansa, would you lick it all up? Hmm? Would you suck me off like this 'til I came? 'Til - _fuck_ , nggh - until my seed was spilling from your mouth?" he snarls, panting, buried in her again and again.

And before she even recognizes the need in her, she's nodding around his fingers, tongue sliding up their length, and the body-racking groan that leaves him hits her with a delicious, dark satisfaction. He's cumming instantly, spilling hot and frenzied inside her, fingers pressed as far down her throat as she can manage, a strangled cry buried in her hair. And then he's panting sharply again, rutting shallowly now, his hand pulling from her mouth to rub at her clit frantically, a soft bite to her shoulder. She's tumbling down after him in short time, squeezing around his cock, hearing his hiss at her ear, and she's falling back to the bed when her elbows give out, Jon's hand trapped beneath her, still at her cunt, and then he's following her down, landing slightly to the side of her, still buried in her.

Sansa jerks at the touch when his hand slips from her folds and anchors at her hip instead, kneading the flesh tenderly, his breath panted between her shoulder blades. They stay like this for many moments, gathering themselves, and then Sansa feels him pulling away, sitting up behind her. She shifts to her back, a hand dragging the sheet up over her chest, some useless sense of propriety she still clings to without knowing why. She lifts herself up on one elbow to watch him.

"I'm sorry," he says, eyes not meeting hers, a hand raked through his curls. "If I was – if that was not – "

"No, I – I liked it," she says immediately, hand clutching the sheet at her chest. Her mouth goes dry when he finally looks at her. "I liked it," she repeats, a trembling whisper.

Jon lets out a rueful laugh, a disbelieving quirk to his lip. "That right?"

She draws a breath, lets it fill her lungs, tucks a sweat-dampened strand of copper behind her ear. "You're not the only one who needs to be honest in this marriage," she says.

Jon's brows sharpen down at the remark, his gaze going dark. A beat passes. An age-long silence. All the moments of almost-revelation and hidden histories spread out before them. Ready to break them. Jon stares at her, his mouth opening, and he looks on the cusp of saying something –

Something wonderful perhaps, or something disastrous.

And perhaps this is just her being selfish but –

"Don't," she says.

Everything halts on a breath.

(And perhaps this is her being petty and craven and _selfish_ \- to want him like this, for just a while longer.)

Jon's mouth clamps closed, a harsh look overtaking his features.

Sansa swallows thickly. "You can take your time," she whispers, clearing her throat. "Just...when you are ready, then. Tell me when you are ready. And I will listen."

Jon looks down to the sheet in her grasp, stares at it a moment, takes a long, full breath. He reaches out and toys with the edge along her thigh, voice low. "You may not want to hear," he says reluctantly, eyes fixed to the motion of his hand.

"But I will listen," she affirms.

He glances back up at her.

Her home – practically just over the hill.

_Can we not be happy?_

It seems willful ignorance is too familiar a comfort these days.

Jon sighs, seeming to understand. "I don't want to argue with you."

"Then don't argue."

He gives her a sardonic look, his hand moving from the sheet to fit over her thigh.

Her lips part, eyes never leaving his even as his hand settles higher up her thigh. "Don't argue," she whispers helplessly.

Jon keeps her gaze, his hand kneading her flesh, fingers dipping down along her inner thigh, eyes glinting when she sucks a breath through her teeth, legs falling open once more. Jon shifts toward her, eyes dark.

"You're not being fair," she tells him, breathless, the sheet already slipping from her grasp.

He stares at her a moment, hard and unrelenting, his hand stopping in its dance along her skin, a breath held at the tip of his tongue.

Sansa blinks at him, held at the edge.

Jon glances to where his hand rests, his other gripping the edge of the sheet and pulling it the rest of the way down, baring her to him. His gaze flicks over her sweat-dampened form, her breasts rising with her heavy breaths, before reaching her eyes once more. He takes a breath, dips his hand down between her thighs with a surety, fingers curling up into her, hitching her breath on a crook. He licks his lips as he watches her. "You don't like fair," he says finally.

Her mouth parts as though in refute but there is none. Only a croak leaves her, her legs parting further for him when he crawls back over her.

"And I'm not finished with you tonight," he growls at her breast, before taking a nipple between his teeth.

Sansa lays back down with a breathy sigh, hands sliding into his hair.

It starts when they stop pretending.

* * *

The last morning before reaching Winterfell, Sansa meets him at his horse. He's tightening the strap of his saddle, and behind them, the last of the tents are being taken down. She greets him with a warm smile that doesn't cease to stagger him. It seems she only grows lovelier the farther North they go, seems to only smile wider, dance more freely, laugh more boisterously.

"My lord," she says with a slight nod.

"My lady," he greets in turn, facing her with a small smile. He doesn't miss the way her eyes flutter down to the bundle in her hands at the look, and a lance of pride rushes through him suddenly.

Good. He isn't the only one affected.

"I have something for you," she says, offering the pile of furs toward him, glancing back up with a fierceness in her eye, a determination. "I worked on it all throughout the trip. I know it may prove...unnecessary in the South but up here in the North, well, I think you will have need of it, my lord."

Jon takes the bundle from her, noticing the heavy brown furs, the leather straps, and he blinks up at her. A cloak, he realizes. In the fashion of the Northmen. In the fashion of the Starks.

A cloak like her father's. A lord of Winterfell.

Jon's mouth opens, his hand resting along the cloak.

Sansa steps toward him with a conspiratorial look, hand reaching for the leather straps. "Here, I've something to show you, but it must be our secret." He watches the mischievous smile branch across her lips and he wants to reach for her suddenly, to wind his hand into her hair and hold her to him. He clears his throat, stifling the urge, glancing around at the many people milling past. He looks to where she holds a leather strap, turning it over so that the even, clear stitching of a direwolf is visible. "Sansa - "

"I know you do not consider yourself a Stark and, pardon my imprudence, but _I_ do, my lord." She meets his eye, her hand still held at the strap, just a whisper away from his.

"My lady - "

"But I understand. I understand you have obligations to your House, to the crown. So I've put the sigil on the inside here, don't you see?" She urges his gaze back down to the strap, holding it overturned for him. "Now you may always wear it here," she says, hand releasing the strap to move to his chest instead, fitting over his heart. "So that even if no one else knows, _you_ will know, my lord." She takes a breath, curls her fingers along his leather jerkin, doesn't relinquish his gaze. "You and I will know the truth of it," she whispers fervently.

Jon stares at her, unable to look away.

He thinks of that first meeting atop the steps of the Red Keep, her scrutinizing gaze and yet hopeful smiles.

_I've not the North in me. Stop looking for it,_ he'd thought.

Jon wants to laugh. She'd taken it as a challenge, it seems, silent as it was. And she is winning, day by day. Oh, but she is winning.

And then he thinks of their talk in the late hours of last night, once they'd laid out across the furs, sated and drowsy. He remembers how she'd curled on her side to watch him, a hand coming up to draw imaginary figures along his chest, her eyes imploring his. "Did you mean what you said? About why your father agreed to letting us North?"

He'd sighed, wiped a hand down his face, turned to mirror her. "Yes," he'd said.

And she'd listened. She let him talk, let him find his words in his own time, and she had listened.

"My father is a good and faithful lord," she'd said, not for the first time, fingers stilling along his chest, a deep breath drawn in through her lungs.

He'd taken her chin between gentle fingers, fixed her gaze to his. "I know," he'd said.

He hopes, beyond words, that she believes him now. Because he'd also meant it when he said he wanted this – for _him_.

He'd meant it when he said he was trying to reconcile what was with what is. Trying to figure out where he falls in the middle of all that. What does he take with him? What does he leave behind? What does he look for now? What does he hold dear, now that it's all been upended?

Jon looks at Sansa now, at the secretive smile she graces him with, her hand sliding from his chest, copper hair streaming in the Northern wind until she must brush it from her face, cheeks pink from the cold, or maybe something more.

"Thank you, Sansa," he breathes, almost disbelievingly.

Yes, he thinks he knows what to hold dear now.

She bites her lip, taking a step back, a sudden uncertainty taking over her features. "It does not... offend, my lord?" she asks with trepidation.

Jon huffs, chuckling, whipping the cloak open to wrap it around his shoulders. "No, it does not."

And he wonders at that suddenly, at the ease with which he welcomes this gift, covets it, even. This mark of a House that once inspired such anger, such resentment.

Now it is a sort of fragile yearning.

He'd meant it, after all, when he said he wanted this.

But he thinks he's only just now learning what that means.

"Will you help me?" he asks, starting to fasten the straps across his chest.

Sansa smiles demurely, stepping into him and taking hold of the leather from his hands. She reaches around his back under the cloak, her cheek brushing his beard, her chin tucked into the crook of his neck and shoulder when she wraps the straps around his back. He can smell her, all of sudden, her hair just beneath his nose, and he closes his eyes, inhales, feels his mouth go dry. One of his hands goes to hold her at the elbow, the other reaching out unconsciously for a copper tendril, his eyes fluttering back open when she retreats from him just a touch, straps back at the front of his chest, her gaze drawn down to them in concentration, even if he can see the way her breaths grow shallow and her throat flexes beneath her swallow.

He wants to tear the cloak from him now. To drag her up against him and take her mouth, to hike her skirts up and wrap her legs around his waist, walk her back into their tent and fall into her, breathe her in, that scent of frost-laden bark and spiced pear, that honeyed tang, that taste of her – to lose himself in her mouth and her hands and in the sacred crooks and willows of her body, the hidden planes of her skin, the tender, devouring embrace of her that only he knows, that only he has ever paid homage to.

"My lord, you are staring," she says suddenly, fastening the last strap at his chest, hands smoothing over it when she goes to step back.

Jon blinks at her, eyes glassy, finding his hand still curled in the ends of her loose, wind-swept hair, and he damns his gloves for keeping the silken strands from his touch. He tightens his other hand around her elbow and drags her back against him, unmindful of whoever in the busy camp may be watching.

Sansa looks up at him, startled, her hands going to brace against his chest. "My lord – "

"I am thinking of doing much more than just staring," he rumbles at her lips.

Sansa collects herself easily, almost too easily for Jon's liking.

(He prefers when she's breathless and incoherent and impossible to silence.)

"In time, my lord. But for now," she pushes back against his chest somewhat with a teasing smile, and he releases her reluctantly, a disheartened grumble at his lips. "For now, we finish readying for the journey. We are almost there, after all."

Jon huffs as he unwinds his hand from her elbow, letting her step back easily. "I admit, I will not miss the riding," he says gruffly, going to test the saddle once more.

Sansa laughs, and Jon thinks he will remember the sound always.

For years to come.

"May I ride beside you, my lord? When we enter the gate?"

Jon looks to her. "I shall like that."

She answers with a grateful smile, nodding her head in farewell. "Then I should ready my horse." She offers one last glance over her shoulder before she disappears into the crowd of the camp.

Jon turns back to his saddle, unable to quell the smile tugging at his lips.

_Tell me when you are ready. And I will listen._

A heavy sigh racks through him at the remembrance. He doesn't think he will ever be ready – not for that. Not for losing her.

Because that is precisely what will happen when he reveals his past with Rhaenys. He knows this. Does not doubt it. He would not resent her for it either. Any rage or betrayal or condemnation on her part would be justified.

And even still – even still, part of him hopes.

Jon shakes his head.

It does not matter.

Whathe wants, does not matter. It is about what she deserves.

The bile is there again, at the back of his throat – that ripe and rancid shame. He will grant Rhaenys this one last respect. He will wait to tell Sansa until he has told Rhaenys of his decision. He will not share another of her shames without her consent, and yet, he _will_ tell Sansa upon their return to King's Landing. He must. But he owes his sister nothing more. She has taken too much already, marred too much of their affection with her heedless search for control. Jon is tired of living as less than a whole.

And if he and Sansa have only this retreat, this winter dream, this split-right-down-the-middle second of contentedness –

_Can we not be happy?_

If this is the only bliss he will ever know, before it gets torn away, before he destroys it with his own hands, before she walks from him without regret –

Then perhaps that is all that he deserves.

* * *

Sansa remembers seeing Winterfell from across the plains once they top the hill. She remembers hearing the horn. She remembers Robb's hoot of happiness and Margaery's laugher atop her horse beside him. She remembers the look on her father's face, a barely-there quake of his jaw, the lines at his eyes crinkled in his smile, before he called the procession on in a proud and booming Northern voice.

But she doesn't remember riding through the gates. She doesn't remember Jon helping her from her saddle. She doesn't remember Ser Rodrik passing the reins to a stable hand with a fond grin her way. She doesn't remember the introductions of her husband, the prince, nor the welcome of her lord father back to Winterfell, nor the affectionate way Robb held Margaery's hand at his arm while they greeted Lady Stark.

Because all of a sudden, her face is buried in her mother's chest, her hands tight around her back, a sharp exhale caught in her throat - " _mother, mother, mother"_ \- and the way Catelyn laughs in her hair, presses fervent kisses to the crown of her head, draws her back to look at her –

"Oh Sansa," she says, and they are embracing again.

It seems an age before either are able to let go, unshed tears in each of their eyes, and Catelyn laughs again, brushing at Sansa's cheeks when the first tear falls, but this time, unlike the girl she'd been, who preened beneath her mother's caresses and nuzzled against her chest for protection, this time she wipes at her mother's cheeks instead, nodding in assurance.

Catelyn stares at her in wonderment, a dear smile spreading over her features, before Ned's hands are at each of their shoulders, a gruff laugh leaving him when they finally part. "Gods, you act as though you haven't seen her in years, Cat."

Catelyn glares fondly up at him, a rueful smile at her sharp lips. "I was heartsick, of course, not to make her wedding. Grant a mother her allowances," she says archly

Another laugh, deep and burly. "Aye, I shall then," he says with a smile, and a kiss to her head.

Catelyn's smile does not wilt, though there's a glint in her eye, a teasing light, and something warms in Sansa at the sight.

"By the Seven, I'm being a terrible host," Lady Stark says then, extricating herself from Sansa's arms and turning to Jon, wiping at the last of her tears.

"Hardly, my lady," he says politely, glancing between her and Sansa. "I know how much my wife has missed you."

Sansa steps toward him, taking his arm, and blushes somewhat under his lingering gaze. There's something of wonder to it, the way he looks upon her now. It makes her skin grow warm beneath her wool dress.

"This your prince then?"

Sansa turns swiftly to find Arya standing in the threshold of the keep beside Rickon, who is a great height taller than her, enough to make Sansa gape. "Arya," she croaks, watching her come down the steps – in a _dress_ \- to stand before her. Dimly, she registers Rickon running into Robb's arms and trading half-hearted punches with Bran and Theon amidst their laughing.

Arya stands with her hands on her hips, her dark hair swept half-up in fine braids, the other half hanging down over her shoulders, far more tame than the last time Sansa saw her. She raises her brows toward Jon.

"Arya, be respectful," Ned urges, though there is a note of fond exasperation to his voice.

She offers a stiff smile, curtseying terribly, and Sansa wants to laugh for it, a hand at her smile.

"Aye, I'm her prince," Jon says beside her. "And you must be Arya."

"She's said _wonderful_ things about me, I'm sure." Arya nearly rolls her eyes with the comment.

"Perhaps that is a touch too kind a word," he jokes.

Sansa gasps at him, reeling back in mock hurt.

Jon only shrugs at her, chuckling. "Truly, Sansa, a lady should not repeat some of the things you said."

"Oh, I like this one," Arya says with a devilish smile, arms crossing over her chest.

Sansa resists the urge to swat at Jon's arm, only barely remembering their company, even as Ned and Catelyn dip their heads together to share a quiet comment or two, and Robb is already introducing Margaery to Ser Rodrik and Maester Luwin.

"Well, if I've a foul mouth it's only because I've learned from _you_ ," she says in rebuke, stilling suddenly when she realizes what words have left her, glancing up to find him staring at her with an arched brow and barely-refrained smirk.

His eyes dip to her mouth, a bow to his lips that tells her he is thinking exactly what she imagines he is.

Sansa clears her throat, looking back to Arya, but her younger sister doesn't seem to have caught on to the insinuation, and Sansa takes the moment to look at her. Arya had been a young woman already when Sansa left for King's Landing, but the way her hair is styled now, the dress adorning her, even the way she'd tried to curtsey before Jon, everything about her throws it into jarring perspective just how little her sister is _not –_ and accordingly, how much time her mother has now found for reluctant Arya.

It makes Sansa's chest tighten without warning.

"Your hair's gotten longer," she says, a hand going out to touch the edges.

Arya swats her hand away good-naturedly. "Aye, I've even brushed it for you on this fine day," she dead-pans.

Sansa's smile breaks across her face. "The birds shall be missing their nest, I'm sure."

"Oh you little – "

"Sansa, we missed you," Rickon says at her side, suddenly bundling her up in a hug that sweeps her from Jon's arm, and she laughs at his height, patting at his head just beneath hers when he pulls away, smiling blindingly.

"Well, I certainly haven't," Arya mumbles.

Rickon cocks his head at Jon. "You don't look like a Targaryen."

"Rickon!" Catelyn shushes from across them.

Her youngest brother only shrugs.

Bran pushes into the circle then, an arm hooked around Rickon's shoulders. "No, he looks more like _you_ , Arya. Only prettier."

Sansa glances up at Jon while Arya howls her indignation, giving Bran a good kick in the shins that brings their mother scowling down at them quickly.

But Jon only chuckles, watching them with amusement until – ah, there – she sees it in the tightening of his jaw, in the quick blink of his eyes, the uneasy quirk of his lip.

Sansa slips her hand into his elbow again, pressing up to his side, giving her warmth, her steadiness, and she swears she feels his exhale against her when he breathes.

"No, I – I take after my mother, I suppose." A tight swallow. A shaky smile. "Or so I am told."

"Well, I don't know about the 'prettier' part, Bran," Robb says at their side suddenly, a brow arched Jon's way. "Couldn't rightly say he got Aunt Lyanna's beauty."

Out of the corner of her eye, Sansa catches her mother eyeing the exchange worriedly, a sharp look thrown Robb's way when he playfully derides Jon.

But Jon takes it in stride, cocking his head at Robb. "You're lucky your mother is too much a lady for me to say the same, Stark," he throws back beneath his breath.

Robb laughs and claps a hand on his shoulder.

Sansa notices her mother's shoulders easing some of their tension when she recognizes the words exchanged between the young lords as candor.

"Yes, well, we'd better take this inside then. You must all be weary from your travels," Catelyn announces to the group, waving everyone up the steps of the Keep. "My lord," she offers gracefully to Jon, and Sansa beams when he nods in deference. Sansa catches the hint of an appreciative smile at her mother's lips when they walk on. Bran and Rickon race past Catelyn as she ushers the rest of her brood inside, Robb escorting Margaery with an arm at her side, Theon catching up with Ser Rodrik as they make the steps, and Arya leans in to Sansa with a sharp whisper.

"Don't expect me to wear a dress every time you come home."

"I'm surprised it isn't caked through with mud right now," Sansa throws out in an equally smothered whisper.

Arya only smirks, gathering her skirts in her hands to lift them to the calf, where Sansa finds she's wearing trousers beneath the dress and sure enough, they are muddied nearly to the knee.

Sansa opens her mouth with a retort when Lady Stark's voice cuts through the hall.

"Arya, for Seven's sake, put your skirts down! Be a lady!"

Arya drops her skirts with an exaggerated bow her mother's way, but dances from her reach easily, chasing after their younger brothers, and Catelyn swears somewhere behind her, muffled though it is.

Sansa glances back to find her father smiling into her mother's hair, an arm around her waist, an exasperated look upon Catelyn's face, even as she chuckles at Ned's whisper.

Sansa turns back to the hall, arm still held in Jon's. The many hearths around the hall are all lit, their light casting warm slants across their passing forms, the heat from them filling her bones, and when she looks up at the high-vaulted ceiling, catches sight of the sturdy wood beams and familiar grey arches, when she glances out the tall, thin windows to find a glimpse of crisp, white sky outside, when she hears her family's voices echoing off the stone and when Jon's hand comes to rest along hers at his arm –

Sansa breathes deep.

Home.

Constant and weathered and hers.

(Like the sigil that rests at Jon's breast, a hidden wolf, just on the flipside.)

_Home_.


	10. In Pieces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "In pieces does it go.
> 
> He may collect them bit by bit – he may clutch them tight to his chest, settle them side by side hoping for them to slip into place like jigsaws, but they will always stay as pieces.
> 
> This is how longing goes." -
> 
> Jon and Sansa. Like the curve of the horizon, when the moon breaks from beneath its bow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not even going to try explaining the delay of this update. Just...here. Eat, you wonderful gremlins you.

Disclaimer: I own nothing, I make no money.

From Instep to Heel

Chapter Ten: In Pieces

" _In pieces does it go._

_He may collect them bit by bit – he may clutch them tight to his chest, settle them side by side hoping for them to slip into place like jigsaws, but they will always stay as pieces._

_This is how longing goes."_ -

Jon and Sansa. Like the curve of the horizon, when the moon breaks from beneath its bow.

* * *

"I hope you are enjoying Winterfell, my lord," Catelyn says with a nod Jon's way, eyes warm about the hall as their guests dance. Three days after he and Sansa's arrival, the Tyrell procession had made its way to Winterfell as well, and the festivities had begun in earnest. Amid the flood of bodies engaged in the hall, Robb twirls Sansa around merrily, and Lord Stark dances with Lady Margaery, while the rest of the Starks watch on from their places at the head table.

Jon raises a cup to Lady Stark in his seat beside her. "You've all been very welcoming, I thank you, my lady." Not that he would expect a Targaryen prince, even a bastard one, to ever be turned away. The Starks are too honorable for that, and too keen to the North's already shaky relationship with the crown.

Catelyn smiles shrewdly at his compliment.

Jon catches the motion, and thinks perhaps she understands better than any of them.

"You haven't even been to the training yard yet, Jon," Bran bemoans, picking at his meal.

Arya raises a brow at the casual address. "Oh, 'Jon', is it?"

Catelyn sends a reproachful look Bran's way. "That isn't proper, Bran."

"Well, he's our brother now, isn't he?" Rickon asks around a mouthful of food.

Catelyn tuts at her youngest's manners, a sharply raised brow sending the boy scrambling for a napkin to cover his mouth, a sheepish look adorning his face.

Jon chuckles beneath his breath.

"He lets me call him Jon," Bran argues, turning to him then. "Don't you, Jon?"

Jon leans back in his chair, setting his wineglass back to the table. "Aye, that I do."

"Except, of course, when we're sparring," Bran continues, attention turned back to his meal nonchalantly. "Then it's always 'my lord'."

"You could still do with a bit of deference, after all, little lord. And sparring requires discipline," Jon chuckles, bringing his glass to his lips when he sees Lady Stark glance his way again curiously.

"Ha! Discipline," Arya scoffs, head cocked Bran's way. "I'd pay to see that. This one has all the discipline of an ass – and the stubbornness, too."

Catelyn's chiding 'Arya' is a soft hiss of breath, and Jon wonders if this is what all Stark dinners are like. Something about it settles steady in his chest, an anchoring – an ease.

Bran glares at his sister. "Ser Jaime thinks I'm coming along well," he defends. "And he certainly knows better than your 'dancing instructor'," he mocks.

Arya's eyes narrow so quickly Jon almost misses it. The look is so strangely reminiscent of Sansa, but in a blunted, imprecise kind of way, that Jon is actually taken aback.

"Syrio could wipe the floor with your precious knight," she sneers back.

Bran opens his mouth to retort but Catelyn's voice cuts through the conversation then.

"Ser Jaime Lannister?" she asks, lips pursed tight.

Jon glances to her, watches her shoulders bunch minutely.

She wipes her hands over her skirts demurely, brushing away imaginary lint when she fixes Bran with a raised brow. "Your father hadn't informed me of that."

Bran almost looks contrite. "Jon helped me get the position. And Father _did_ approve, eventually. Really, Mother, it's a good arrangement."

Catelyn shifts her gaze to Jon, cool and unaffected, but the lift of her chin tells Jon to be wary. "You had a hand in my son's squiring?"

Jon nods, fingers thrumming along the stem of his wineglass. "I did."

She purses her lips, hands bunching in her lap. "Ser Jaime Lannister, hmm? And you thought that wise?"

There's a current of something in her voice then, something Jon cannot identify, but it makes him no less apologetic. "It was the boy's wish," he tells her, no appeasement in his tone. Only truth.

Catelyn watches him for a moment longer, and then she offers a tight smile. "Sometimes it does to deny a boy's wish, my lord," she says meaningfully. "They do not always understand what they ask for, after all."

Jon nods, rolling the words along his tongue, before tilting his head toward her when he speaks, "The men they become understand well enough, my lady, one way or another."

A smile cracks the edges of her lips, a faint nod offered in his direction before she's reaching for her mug of ale. "I suppose you are right."

Jon takes another swig from his own drink in acknowledgement, a thrum of understanding passing between them unspoken.

"I'm not a 'boy'," Bran grumbles from the other side of Lady Stark, hardly audible.

Arya beams victoriously at him.

"I thank you all the same, my lord, for your attentions to my sons," Catelyn says, her shoulders easing somewhat as she settles back in her seat, her heavy mug held surprisingly delicately before her lips. "It was not them you were wed to, after all." She releases a graceful chuckle with the words.

Jon allows a small smile in return. "No, but," and he looks at Bran then, face softening, "They are _my_ brothers as well now, are they not?"

Rickon beams around another mouthful of food. "Hear that, Mother? I'm brother to the prince!"

"You're an animal is what you are," Arya laughs. "Come here." She wipes at Rickon's cheeks with a napkin, shaking her head at him. He only takes another forkful, eyes bright as he watches her tend to him. She rolls her eyes and gives up, napkin thrown to the table, though she's trying desperately to hide her own amusement at his antics.

Jon watches the youngest Stark girl, her impulsive mothering of Rickon at strange odds with the snappish, forceful young woman he's seen of her thus far. It has him stilling his wineglass at his lips, gaze thoughtful, remembering –

 _My mother was a Tully_ , Sansa had told him once. Is _a Tully_ , she'd corrected. _As much as she is a Stark_.

Jon thinks he understands now.

Family, duty, honor. Those were their words.

And all these last moons it's been _Winter is coming_. But perhaps they aren't so different.

(Yes, he thinks he understands now.)

For what does one do when winter comes?

You seek warmth. You seek _each other_.

Family – pack.

No, not so different. Not so blaringly apart. But Jon has been living in the in-between (between Targaryen and Stark, between _Fire and blood_ and _Winter is coming_ ) for so long. that he doesn't know how to exist fully in either, how to be anything but split apart, a jumble of pieces. He doesn't know how to be one as much as the other.

(And maybe that is the point. Maybe they aren't supposed to exist equally. Maybe this is the choice he was always meant to make.)

Arya rolls her eyes at her youngest brother, but she's already shoveling the rest of her unfinished pot roast onto his plate. Jon notices Catelyn smiling fondly at the motion, hidden somewhat by the mug in her hand.

Jon clears his throat, squashing the tumult of emotions lighting in his chest. "You train, Lady Arya?" he asks instead, brow piqued.

Arya gives him a devilish grin, settling back into her seat now that Rickon has tucked into his food once more. "I do, my lord."

Bran scoffs, drawling his response with a fork waved vaguely at his sister. "Our father's indulgence."

"Don't be jealous," Arya says primly.

Bran shakes his head, fork tipped back to his plate. "Jealousy requires an envious subject." His eye roll is accompanied by a faint smile though, and Jon's chest aches inexplicably at the sight.

He glances to the Lady Stark to find her rubbing at the space between her eyes. "Seven, give me strength," she mumbles, barely audible.

Jon barely suppresses a laugh.

Arya leans forward suddenly, arms linked over the table, eyes bright. "Would you spar with me, my lord? I should like to test myself."

Jon's eyebrows rise into his hairline. "You wish to spar?"

Rickon looks up at the exchange with a mouth full of pork.

Arya is practically bouncing in her seat. "If you would have me, of course. I daresay I'd present a far better challenge than my brother here." She hooks a thumb toward Bran and ignores his glare, even as he stuffs a buttered potato into his scowling mouth.

Jon does laugh this time, raking a hand through his hair. "If your lady mother should approve," he grants, eyes flickering toward the Stark matriarch.

Catelyn's shoulders pull back, lips pursed at the address. She arches a brow Arya's way, only to find a pleading expression that instantly has her shaking her head and chuckling, eyes heavenward. "I suppose I can hardly decline a prince," she says with a mock sigh, eyes glinting when she looks back to her daughter.

Arya's mouth breaks into a wide grin, words at the tip of her tongue, sitting straighter in her seat when –

"After, of course, you finish your sewing lessons with Septa Mordane," Catelyn finishes archly.

Arya slumps back into her seat, instantly deflated.

Catelyn takes a sip of ale to hide her smile. "You see, my lord," she begins, eyes glancing back to Jon, "Parenthood is often compromise."

Jon is quiet then, fingers tightening over the stem of his wineglass. He thinks of his father's hands at his shoulders, along his cheeks, eyes set on his.

Not so much a compromise as a demand.

One he would have been eager to meet, before.

Before –

"Something you may learn yourself, soon enough," Catelyn finishes, a nod set his way.

And then it is Sansa's hands at his shoulders, at his cheeks, eyes set to his. The warmth of her beneath him, the spread of her copper hair along his pillows, the hook of her legs around his waist, the throaty moans she never bothers to smother, the heady flush of her pleasure at his fingertips, along his tongue, wrapped tight around his cock, the unspoken promise between them, when his hands light along her stomach and she presses flush against him, when he's spilling hot and frenzied inside her, the slow-growing hope branching through his lungs each time he spends his seed within her.

Jon shifts in his seat, throat clearing subtly. He glances across the floor for her form, catches a flash of red along the dance floor, his chest rising steady and slow with his inhale.

"'Soon' is _exactly_ the word," Bran bemoans, his fork speared through a potato, "If what I've heard is anything to go by." He fights a grimace.

Jon snaps his gaze to the young man, heat rising to his cheeks without his bidding. His mouth tips open but no words follow.

Bran scrunches his nose. "You can only be so quiet in _tents_ ," he supplies, returning to his food.

Jon takes a long, deep swig of wine, decidedly not looking at Lady Stark, especially when Rickon bursts into laughter and Arya releases a disgusted noise.

Gods, but he could _kill_ the boy.

Jon barely resists the urge to push from the table and never look back, or perhaps to slink down beneath it.

"Bran," Catelyn censures dryly, "You're being too informal. And your sister is a married woman now. She has a duty to her husband."

Jon's throat tightens, his wineglass stilled halfway between his mouth and the table, a grimace overtaking his lips before he can stop it, the word a visceral reminder.

_Duty,_

It seems a dirty thing, now. To think that anything between them could be described as 'duty'.

Not when she rests her fingers tenderly along the nape of his neck, and not when she presses her mouth to the hollow of his throat, and not when she curls into his side and rakes a hand over his chest when they are sated and drowsy.

Not when she falls asleep facing him, implicit in her trust, her openness, her wanting of him.

Not when he wakes with her bundled in his arms and the light of dawn cascading over her form and every line of her body is molded perfectly to his.

Not when she is every horizon he never dared to reach for.

Jon's eyes wet instantly, without warning. He blinks it back harshly, mouth a tight line, and when he glances back up, he finds Lady Stark staring at him, an unrecognizable look to her face. Her mouth tips open, but then –

"She likes you."

Everyone stills.

Jon blinks unfocused eyes toward the youngest Stark, watches as he shovels another forkful of pork into his mouth.

Arya raises a brow his way, patient for his explanation.

Catelyn shifts in her seat, her mug of ale returned to the table.

Rickon looks about the table, at the expectant faces turned his way after his comment. He shrugs, swallowing back his food. And then he motions to Jon. "She made it for you, didn't she? That cloak?"

Arya glances back to Jon with a perusing eye. Bran is silent as he eats, a knowing smile at his lips. Lady Stark is unnervingly still, her gaze settled on him once more.

Jon finds his hand reaching for the strap at his chest, fingers edging over the leather gently.

The wolf beneath. Just on the flipside.

Jaw clenching, hand retreating from the strap, Jon nods at Rickon. A single, swift assurance.

Rickon waits a moment, head cocked. And then he smiles – brilliant and wolf-bright. "She likes you," he says succinctly, turning back to his plate without preamble.

Jon feels the breath rake from his chest without warning. He watches the boy, throat parched, words stilted along his tongue.

Catelyn taps a thoughtful finger along the handle of her mug.

"She doesn't sew _me_ cloaks anymore," Rickon tacks on grudgingly, suddenly sullen.

Arya barks a laugh, and it's like a crack of wind, a welcomed rush of air.

Jon feels it unwind from his chest, suddenly - a slow-thawing winter.

Catelyn sighs. "Perhaps if you stopped ruining them," she replies sagely, a meaningful look her son's way.

Rickon grins cheekily at her. Bran snorts a laugh into his fist.

And Jon is blessedly, inexplicably –

Content.

* * *

"Oh Sansa, it's beautiful," Margaery sighs beside her, trekking into the clearing of the godswood, eyes alighting the heart tree.

Sansa watches her make her way toward the ancient weirwood, a subtle smile gracing her features, following shortly after her.

Margaery glances back at her, silken hair slipping over her shoulder. "You were right. I _would_ love to be married here."

Sansa settles along the edge of the pond just inside the clearing, a thin layer of ice already forming over the water, a gentle drift of snow layering everything. Sansa takes a deep, crisp breath, lets it fill her lungs, exhales it just as cleanly. She bundles her gloved hands before her, looks up at the overarching branches of the weirwood.

A red shadow overtakes her vision, slips of light falling in prisms through the blood-toned leaves.

It is not the temple of her mother's gods, not the sept where she falls to her knees in worship, but there has always been something ancient and intimate here, something greater than oneself. She understands the draw of it, the weight of it, the way it fills the lungs with wonder.

Margaery presses a gloved hand to the rough bark and stares at the touch. Sansa watches her from her place at the edge of the pond.

Someplace greater than oneself. It always seemed an appropriate place to marry, to _become_ something greater than oneself. A part of a whole.

Sansa's throat tightens, her smile watery.

Would she have taken Jon for her husband here? Of her own choice? Would she have wed him in the sight of the old gods?

"May I tell you something, Sansa?"

Margaery's voice is soft, brittle in the gentle wind. It barely reaches her ears. Sansa takes a step closer. "Anything," she promises her.

Margaery's hand slips from the tree, but she stays turned to it, gaze shifting up to glance overhead at the swaying branches. "I don't think your mother likes me overly much." It's a chuckle that leaves her with the words, but it's far shakier than Sansa expects.

Her brows furrow. "Robb is her firstborn. Her _son_." Her gaze turns soft. "She is cautious."

"Does she find me scheming, do you think?"

Something about the words throws Sansa – the tremor with which they're said.

Margaery still will not look at her.

"Margaery - "

"She would be right," she gets out, strikingly sure, finally turning to Sansa. Her eyes are wet, her smile like glass. "She would be right, you know."

The wind seems to stop. A steady beat of silence passes between them. They stay staring at each other through the filtering snow, still and waiting – precariously close to a ledge Sansa has only ever glimpsed at from a distance.

She sucks a shallow breath between her lips. "What are you...?"

And then Margaery clears her throat, stalking back over to her, taking her hands in hers suddenly. "Sansa, I love your brother. I love him so dearly now, but I – I did not always." She shakes her head, takes a breath, looks back up at her. "Do you understand me?"

Sansa stares at her, watches the shadow of flickering leaves break across her features, tendrils of hair sweeping across her earnest face with a Northern gust. Her heart clenches in her chest.

_She went for the next best thing: the heir to Winterfell._

Sansa remembers the words, even now. Hadn't admitted to the home they made in her heart, even as she refused them. That lingering doubt.

But Sansa has always taken people at more than their intentions.

Margaery shifts her eyes between hers, searching, narrowed. "You must know, Sansa. Somewhere inside, even if you won't admit to it, you must know." She swallows thickly, hands tightening over hers. "That I approached you with this goal in mind – from the very start." Her gaze breaks, her eyes fluttering down, focused on their joined hands. A heavy breath leaves her.

She understands though. She gets it now. There is no protection for women in this world but the kind you marry into, and is it a sin for a woman to _choose_ that protection? To have a hand in it? To not sit idly by?

She is a faithful daughter, yes, and she heeded her parents' wishes for her own marriage. Her father's wishes. And perhaps she is luckier than most that her husband seems genuine in his regard for her, in his desire to protect her, but this cannot be the case for all. She sees this now.

Her own mother had no guarantee of love or affection when she married her father, but protection at least, was ensured. Her father has always been an honorable man, after all. And maybe Sansa had always taken that for granted, had always found the ease in such a marriage, never knowing the trials.

King's Landing was an awakening, to say the least.

Part of her resents that Margaery had such designs on her brother, of course, but she thinks she understands now. That resentment is more for her situation than it is the woman in particular. For the world that forces her hand so. For the cage she is just now seeing the bars of.

And yet always, her words echo in her ear.

_Duty is all well and good, Sansa, but will it keep you warm at night? Will it weather the years with you? Will it grow old and grey beside you?_

They each long for love, even if Margaery does not say it in so many words. They will do what they must to survive in this world, yes, but she knows Margaery has tasted loneliness. She knows she has yearned for more.

Anyone who could say such words, after all, _must_ yearn for more.

It is not a crime Sansa finds unforgivable.

"I would be lying if I said I hadn't suspected it," she says slowly, finally, licking her lips with her trepidation. She takes a breath, lets it taste air. "But I would also be lying if I said I hadn't suspected more."

Margaery glances up at her again. The snow falls soft around them.

"I chose to believe you were more than that, and you have proven that belief worthwhile."

A sound escapes Margaery's throat, her lips parting. She shakes her head again, a sharp furrow to her brow. "Sansa, how can you...?"

Sansa steps into her. "I was right to trust you. So trust me now."

The other woman blinks salt-tinged eyes at her, mouth pursing closed, riveted.

"Give her time. My mother will see what I see. She will see the love you bear her son, and she will welcome you whole-heartedly. Family, duty, honor, you remember? Always family first." Sansa sets an imploring gaze on her, nodding, a steady smile branching across her lips. "So love my brother. Just...love him. The way I know you already do. And everything else will follow, I promise."

"Sansa - "

"You did not have to tell me this, and yet you did. I thank you for that."

Margaery wipes at her eyes, heaves a breath. She keeps her other hand firmly clasped in Sansa's. "Gods, but can you forgive me?"

Sansa laughs, short and bright – nothing incredulous about it, only warm. "I don't think you need my forgiveness, but you have it nonetheless."

Margaery nods, thumb grazing over Sansa's knuckles. She glances back to the weirwood, steady and looming behind them. The snow never stops falling, and the cold stays always in the bones up here, but it is an embrace Sansa has missed.

Out of the corner of her eye, she finds Margaery swallowing back a shaky breath, her eyes wet, her shoulders tight. Sansa uncurls her hand around the other woman's so that she may instead thread her fingers through hers.

She sighs, the air crisp on her tongue. "You make my brother happy," she says, surprised at the choke behind the words, the threat of tears lining her voice. "And for that, I think I could forgive you anything."

Margaery's free hand goes to her face, covering her sob, her crumbling features. Sansa tugs her toward her by their joined hands, embracing her before the watching weirwood, letting her bury her face in the fur at her shoulder. "Welcome to the North," she breathes into her hair, smile widening, "Sister."

Margaery curls her hands around Sansa's shoulders, sighing against her, a watery laugh leaving her.

The shadow of the heart tree stretches ever wide across their forms.

* * *

"Not much for snow, are you, my lord?" Robb jests as they ride their horses along the banks of the wolfswood.

"It is...cumbersome," Jon grumbles, hands twisting in the reins.

Theon barks a laugh on his other side. "I think the capital's made you soft, my lord," he sneers.

Jon throws him a baleful look. "And you're a Stark now, are you, Lord _Greyjoy_?" Jon snaps back, irritated at his presence already, and their hunt has only just begun.

"Iron and snow, my lord," Theon replies glibly. "The two go hand in hand. Takes a special sort to weather either."

"Aye, you're a special sort," Robb laughs, shaking his head.

Jon's mouth opens in retort but then Ned's horse goes thundering past. "Quickly now, boys, if we plan to bring anything back in time for dinner."

Bran and Rickon follow shortly after, taunting each other as they race, and Robb glances back to Jon one last time with a wide-set grin, before urging his horse on.

Jon sends a final glare to the smug-looking Theon before he's off as well, his horse's hooves kicking up snow and dirt. Hounds and men follow behind them, racing deeper into the wolfswood in search of game.

Jon clenches his jaw at their company. Men of the North. Some of whom have made their distaste of a Targaryen bastard, even one of Northern blood, not so hidden. Jon hardly expected a warm welcome when he'd arrived, but in some small measure, he'd hoped for it.

Perhaps it's the Starks who've made him soft.

Jon urges his horse on.

Lord Stark had made it abundantly clear that his nephew was welcomed amongst Winterfell's halls during the first night's feast, and Jon had glanced around the room at Lyanna's mention, cups raised solemnly in answer, before hearty men dipped their heads and downed their glasses in thunderous remembrance, bellows echoing throughout the hall, fists on tabletops, and Jon had never seen such a thing before.

Even when they still sent him wary glances, even when they grumbled their distaste, even when they refused to be shy about their opinions on his presence when he attempted to converse with some of the lords, _even then_ \- for all its boisterousness and impropriety – Northern court felt uniquely intimate. They would follow their lord, that was abundantly clear, but they didn't have to be quiet about it.

It almost makes Jon want to laugh.

And yet, there is no true dissension in their ranks. Ned had not bothered trying to silence them, and though Jon first took this in with a mark of concern, he finds now that he should have taken it with a mark of respect. For so long, he's watched his father silence his opposition with a ruthlessness he once admired, a single-minded vision, and consequently, he has watched their empire crumble, bit by bit, with whispers and deception, with his family's own weapons used against them. There is nothing of the sort here. Here, a man says what he means. And he says it loudly. There is no intrigue or courtly manipulation. There is no hidden meaning beneath one's words, nor hidden ambitions beneath one's actions. There is only a man and his lord. A service unto each other.

And he finds his father was right to fear the North.

"She make that for you?" Theon asks him when they've slowed to a trot, motioning to the heavy cloak adorning his shoulders.

Jon remembers the smell of her when she'd wrapped him in the cloak's warmth, the feel of her cheek against his beard, the soft curl of a smile tugging at her lips.

He arches a brow Theon's way.

"Sansa," he clarifies, though it needs no clarifying.

Jon doesn't like how he says her name, nor the casualness with which he says it. He grumbles his ascent, wondering why the Greyjoy has lined his horse with his. Up ahead, Bran and Ned are trailing the hounds, and behind them, Robb is teaching Rickon how to sit astride while pulling a bow.

Theon tips his head in thought, mouth pursed. "Figured she'd always make a dutiful wife."

"Not yours though." It's petty of him, he knows, but he can't help the words as they leave his mouth.

Theon rests his arms over the horn of his saddle, leaning forward slightly with a glint of amusement in his eye, the reins held leisurely in his hand. "No, she was never meant for me," he says.

Jon is acutely aware how the man does not deny any desire on his part though, and his hands tighten over his reins at the thought.

"Always thought she'd be a queen though," Theon continues, glancing ahead.

"Not a bastard's bride, hmm?" Jon says archly.

Theon laughs. "Your words, my lord. Not mine."

Jon leans back in his saddle a bit, watching him. "And you think you could offer her better?"

Theon glances back to him, straightening in his seat atop the horse. "Does it matter now?"

Jon clenches his jaw, teeth grinding, eyes flitting ahead at Lord Stark's hollering. The hounds have caught a scent.

Jon takes a deep breath, gathering the reins in his fist. "She deserves far better than either of us," he answers beneath his breath, before he's digging his heels in and racing after his uncle.

He misses the look of surprise on Theon's face.

Later, when they're chasing down an elk, his arrows missing by a hair's width, Robb's teasing egging him on, he's not particularly surprised when Theon's arrow hits the mark right between the eyes.

He glances across the snow-capped ferns at the Greyjoy, Bran and Rickon already bounding over to the felled beast. But Theon isn't looking at him. He doesn't look at him the entire ride back.

Somewhere in the distance, a wolf is howling.

"Direwolves," Rickon tells him as they make their way back to Winterfell, nodding up toward the far hills, the sun dipping down along the horizon in a streak of red against white.

Jon glances up to where the youngest Stark motions, eyes scanning the horizon, but nothing emerges. Even still, he knows he is right. Something tells him to trust the boy.

Something tells him to trust the North knows how to bare its teeth as well as any beast.

* * *

"Ha!" Arya shrieks, her sword clashing against Jon's, before she's pushing off, twirling her sparring blade in her grip, taking a lower stance.

Jon shakes his head, smile blinding, curls clinging to his forehead with sweat. He changes sword hands, notes the flicker of unease in her eyes when he does so. "Never let your enemy read your movements."

Arya purses her mouth, a frown marring her features, and then she's lunging again.

Jon pivots away, striking out, catching her swing mid-arc, but she recovers quickly, thrusting again, and Jon barks a laugh as she pushes him back, pure delight at her enthusiasm, swift and agile as she is.

She tips left, and he catches the arc of her blade with his own, stepping into her lunge, grabbing at her other wrist with his free hand, ignoring her shriek of surprise and yanking her off balance. She stumbles toward him, sword up, but he's braced for the impact, twisting to use her momentum, letting her tumble into the dirt, his sword swift at her throat when she scrambles onto her back.

She lays there huffing, staring up at him, and Jon's chest is heaving as well, he must admit.

A mischievous smirk breaks across her face and she shoves a hand into the air, expecting his assistance without word, and he grants it, grasping her arm, hauling her back to her feet with practiced ease.

Arya dusts off her leathers, picking her sword up off the ground. "Alright, Jon, time to come clean,"

Jon wipes at his sweat-laced brow, leaning back on one foot with an inquisitive brow arched her way. "About what?"

"After all these spars, you've got to see that I'm better than Bran."

Jon chuckles, waving her over to the nearby bench. Along the yard, Rickon trains with Ser Rodrik, and on the other side, Bran is sinking arrows beneath the deriding teachings of Theon. Jon places his sparring sword back along the rack, taking up his own sword as it lays unattended along the bench, unsheathing it and laying it in his lap. Arya watches him quietly a moment, following suit shortly after. Her own blade is thin and short, closer to a dagger than a sword, and though Jon had, at first, chuckled at the sight, he sees now its value in such a hand as hers. Not all blades are made for blind destruction. Not all warriors are made for blunt force. This teacher of hers, Syrio Forel, knows more than he'd originally given him credit for.

Jon takes an oiled cloth to his blade, the motion always soothing to him after a fight. Clean. Clipped. A smoothness to the even swipe of his hand along the blade, something grounding. His heart settles back into an easy pattern quickly, gentled by the motion. Arya takes after him almost on instinct, and he smiles inwardly at the sight, watching her unsheath her blade with a reverence only a true swordsman would have for their weapon. But he keeps these musings to himself. He doesn't think his wife would particularly appreciate his encouraging of her sister's aggressions.

She glances at him out of the corner of her eye, her own oiled cloth gliding smoothly over her blade. "It's true though, isn't it?"

"Hmm?"

"I'm better than Bran."

Jon spares a chuckle. "You're...different."

Arya huffs, eyes back on her blade. "That doesn't mean 'better."

"Doesn't mean 'worse' either."

Arya silences then, continuing in her cleaning. She straightens suddenly, hand stilling while she glances out across the yard. "You know, it took me years to convince Mother I could train as well as the boys."

Jon hums a noise of acknowledgement. "I can imagine."

Her face narrows, a scoff leaving her. "I doubt it. Men have never had to prove themselves like women have."

"No, but bastards have." He doesn't know what compels him to say the words, but they make it to air regardless, and he cannot take them back.

More than that, he doesn't _want_ to take them back.

Arya glances at him a moment, silent and musing.

It's unnerving, he realizes. And he finds he's not particularly fond of Stark women peering at him. Makes him feel undone in his own skin.

Jon clears his throat suddenly, hand harsh in its swipe down his blade. "I mean, I think I understand you."

Arya nods slightly, a thoughtful lilt to her mouth. "Aye, perhaps you do."

"And what, you never thought to live the life of a lady? Never thought to make yourself comfortable in some man's castle?" It's not said derisively, just curiously, and he wonders at this newfound ease he finds with her.

"Is Sansa comfortable?" she asks without pause.

Jon stills at the question, shifting toward her.

Arya does not look at him, just continues the motion of her hand along the blade.

Jon swallows thickly, glancing out over the yard, eyes alighting on Rickon when he falls back into the dirt, a frustrated grunt breaking from his mouth.

A lick of his lips, his gaze flickering away, his hand resuming its motion, Jon replies, "I should hope so." It's not said with the sort of confidence he would have liked.

"Shouldn't you know? Being her husband and all?" she asks derisively.

Jon sighs, shaking his head. "Marriage isn't so clean cut, Arya," he says lowly, "Especially not in the capital."

"Then make it clean cut," she pushes.

He arches a brow at her.

Arya huffs, focus resumed on her blade. "You're pack now – to each other. And the lone wolf may die but the pack survives, so...survive. Whatever you need to do. Survive. Together." She glances at him with a dark look, the familiar grey of her eyes startlingly clear. "She can be a wretched thing, _believe me_ , I know, but – but she's my sister. _My_ sister. She's..." Arya trails off, glancing away from him, mouth pursed in a tight line.

Jon heaves a breath, finds the word easy on his tongue. "Pack?"

She looks back at him with a raised brow.

Jon nudges at her shoulder, turning back to the cleaning of his blade, unable to keep her eye. "You Starks aren't so hard to read," he says on a laugh, throat tight without knowing why.

Arya releases a similar chuckle, shaking her head. " _We_ Starks, you mean."

She says it so easily, and there again, that clench in his chest, that hitch of air in his lungs.

Jon swallows back his retort, because it seems pointless now – now when he's sitting here with his little cousin, polishing blades, sweating even in the frigid Northern air, the laughter of her brothers filtering through the chill toward their ears. A great many things seem pointless suddenly.

Jon breathes deep, lets it fill his lungs, exhales slow and steady.

They continue on in silence for a time, a contented silence that Jon doesn't remember ever feeling in his own home, especially not in his own training yard. No. That place is reserved for sharpened barbs disguised as brotherly taunts, for an overseeing eye, for scrutiny in every corner and praise so hard to come by he'd beamed beneath even the faintest of his father's smiles.

Jon doesn't know how long they sit like this, only that the shadow of the sun has shifted over his shoulder, blaring bright even through the crisp winter air.

"You trained under Ser Arthur Dayne, didn't you?" Arya asks softly.

Jon is grateful he doesn't falter in his motions, nor stutter in his words when he answers her. "For a time."

"He why you're so good?"

Jon laughs at the question, even more so at the unladylike way she pieces the words together. And yet, it suits her. It suits her just fine. "He's a large part of it, yes."

"And the other part of it?"

Jon's lips thin into a tight line, his teeth grinding. "Ambition." He swallows, glances to her. "Perseverance."

She considers him quietly, returns to her blade with a thoughtful look. "I hear he was a great swordsman." The words are soft, compassionate.

Jon is grateful for it.

"He was more than that." His words are a croak, and he has to clear his throat before he continues, eyes focused on his blade lest he lose himself. "He was the greatest man I ever knew."

Arya stills her hand along her blade, watching him. "The greatest man you've ever known?"

Jon nods silently, throat bobbing.

"Not your father?"

Jon's hand halts mid-swipe, his lips parting. He turns to her swiftly.

She's looking at him expectantly, one brow raised, eyes unblinking.

Jon swallows thickly, schooling his features back to impassiveness. "My father is a king," he grinds out.

Arya turns to him more fully, her own blade forgotten in her lap. "Is he not also a man?"

Jon sends her a warning look, back straightening.

Arya seems to read the stiffness in his posture, the furrow in his brow, because she's turning away from him then, disappointment shadowing past her features, a resigned scoff leaving her. "Are you not also a man, simply because you are a prince?" she grumbles out.

Jon stares at her, mouth parting over words he doesn't know how to bring to air. But he doesn't get the chance to voice them, nor the tangle of emotion left withering in his throat.

"Targaryen."

Jon looks up to find Robb's grim face framed by sunlight. He nods for him to follow. Jon grabs for a clean cloth to wipe down his blade. "What is it?"

"Deserter from the Night's Watch," he says solemnly. "Come on. Time you saw a bit of Northern justice."

Jon stands, sheathing his sword. He glances back to Arya, who's already standing herself, sighing as she tosses her rag aside. "Not that Father would ever let _me_ join."

"Arya," Robb admonishes, but it's with a tender sort of resignation Jon hasn't heard before.

Arya waves him off easily. "I know, I know." She sighs heavily, nodding up at her eldest brother. "I know, Robb."

Robb chucks her beneath the chin, a soft smile sent her way, before he's urging Jon after him. "Bran, Rickon," he calls across the yard. The boys look up simultaneously. Theon seems to somber when he catches the look on Robb's face. "Father needs us."

Jon follows the Starks and Theon wordlessly, Ser Rodrik sighing as he racks the sparring blades and trails after them. Glancing up, Jon catches sight of the afternoon sun hanging low over the ramparts. Even now, he can tell the snow will still fall come nightfall.

Even now, he can feel the crawl of winter.

(It is coming.)

He looks ahead, keeps his stride.

(It's been coming for such a long, long time.)

* * *

Sansa trails her hand over the hilt of Jon's sword as it lays sheathed along the rack in their chambers. She'd known about the execution earlier that day, known about Jon's presence with her father and brothers when the sentence came down. Arya had told her upon her entrance to the hall midday, where Sansa sat sewing with Jeyne, shoving a bread roll into her mouth after the news.

Dinner was a quiet affair.

Now, alone in their chambers once more, Sansa can't help thinking of it. In the flicker of firelight from the hearth, she can see the etched lines along the hilt of his blade, the simple decoration. No dragons. No flames. Nothing to tie it to its master, truly. In a way, it's settling, though she can't precisely determine why.

"There's a thought in that head dying to get out, I can tell," Jon chuckles from his seat at the edge of the bed. He drops his boot to the floor, finally free of the day's trappings, his leather jerkin laying over the back of the nearby chair, clad now in only his breeches and untucked tunic.

Sansa turns to him at the comment, a brow raised.

He quirks a smile, leaning back on his hands, watching her. "I'm not completely unobservant, you know."

Sansa shakes her head, a soft smile at her lips. "No, you certainly are not." She turns back to the sword, hand gliding over the thick sheath, contemplative.

Jon watches her in silence, taking her in.

And then she sighs, turning back to him, her hand slipping from the blade. "I don't understand Arya's fascination with it. With killing, fighting, all of it."

Jon nods thoughtfully a moment, eyes drifting to the racked sword when he asks her, "Are you sure that's what the fascination is?"

Sansa furrows her brows, mouth pursed.

He glances back to her, straightening up. "Take it."

Her eyebrows shoot up into her hairline. "What, your sword?"

Jon chuckles at her, motioning toward it. "Aye, the sword."

She eyes it doubtfully a moment, giving him one last incredulous look, but at his expectant expression, she squares her shoulders, brushing her hands over her shift in nervousness before reaching for it. It's far heavier than she expects, and her elbows buckle slightly as she lifts it from its place on the rack, unprepared for the strain.

Behind her, Jon smothers a laugh into his fist.

"Don't you dare mock me, Jon Targaryen," she warns him with a sly look over her shoulder, hefting the sword in her grasp.

Jon clears his throat, looking abashed, though amused still, and Sansa finds it in her to smile at the expression when she turns fully to him. She grips the blade by the hilt, the other holding up the sheathed end of it. She tips it back and forth in the light, glancing down the length of it. When Jon continues his silent watching of her, she peers up at him, shoulders shrugging. "What now?"

Jon shifts so that he's leaning with one elbow over his knee, dark curls falling over his brow, and the way the fire flickers over his face, suddenly somber and focused, has Sansa heating in her own skin. "You feel the weight of it?" he asks her, low and steady.

She nods, voice lost, taken abruptly by the image of him.

"That weight means something. Something more than the killing or the fighting. It's a responsibility."

"What responsibility?" she whispers, swallowing thickly when she finds her voice hoarse.

Jon tips his head, eyes intent. "To protect what you love."

Sansa clamps her mouth shut, unable to say more.

Jon leans back, motioning toward him. "Come here," he says softly, the words a gentle entreaty. It still feels like a command though, when her limbs go to him of their own accord. He stares up at her, hands going for her hips.

Sansa continues to watch him in keen anticipation, his sword still gripped tight between them, and then he's turning her, edging back along the bed a touch, drawing her down to sit between his legs, his chest pressed to her back through the thin material of her shift and his tunic. Sansa settles the sword in her lap, throat parched as Jon drags his hands down her arms to clasp over her own hands, pulling the blade slowly from its sheath. She feels his breath at her cheek, the scratch of his beard along the juncture between shoulder and neck, and she stiffens at the intimacy of the position, her chest constricting.

Jon seems unaware of her state, continuing to draw the sword out until it pulls fully from the sheath, glinting in the firelight, and he tosses the sheath aside. Sansa draws a deep breath in, eyes fixing to his hand when he takes her free one and turns it palm up, settling the cool steel of the blade atop her palm, the hilt still held tight between their joined grasps. His fingers thread through hers, hand braced beneath hers to hold the weight of the sword.

She can't deny the sense of potency she feels with it in her grasp, the might that fills her, a dark kind of satisfaction with something so deadly cradled in her palms.

"You see that?" he breathes at her ear.

Sansa nearly jumps at his voice, so lost in the sensation she had been. She licks her lips, turns slightly to him over her shoulder. "What?" It's a breathless exhale that passes her lips.

Jon's hand leaves hers beneath the blade, gliding up the length of it, skirting the edge, just a slice away from bleeding. Sansa's breath catches in her throat at the motion.

"The sharpness of it. The thickness of the blade," he rumbles at her ear, hand treading back to hers. "There's power in such a thing. The kind of power that can end a man's life."

Sansa sucks a sharp breath between her teeth, twisting to look at him, but his eyes aren't on her. They're fixed to the blade as he settles it along her lap, dark and glazed over, lost somewhere she may never know.

"It's not a light burden, believe me. And it never should be."

Sansa stills at the words, watching him, face softening when his gaze flickers back up to hers, seemingly just noticing her attention on him, and he dips a reassuring smile to her shoulder, lips warm even through her shift.

"Jon."

"You know, today, when your father had me accompany him to sentence that deserter," he begins, stopping suddenly, licking his lips before he continues, "He told me 'If you would take a man's life, you owe it to him to look into his eyes and hear his final words. And if you cannot bear to do that, then perhaps the man does not deserve to die."

Sansa blinks at the words. She's never heard the like from her father, but even now, she can hear his voice in them, his solemn bearing, his noble urging. Yes, it's exactly something her father would say. She finds a warmth in her chest she hadn't thought to find before. Gently, Sansa extracts her hand beneath Jon's around the hilt, lifting it to his cheek instead.

He glances at her, their faces only a breath away.

"I think I understand," she whispers, hand cradling his jaw, and she catches the way his gaze falls to her lips briefly, before shifting back to hers.

Jon clears his throat, looking back down to the sword from over her shoulder.

Sansa's hand slips from his cheek, her fingers tingling, winded somewhat. "Where did you get this sword?" she asks in a breathy whisper, cursing her faltering voice. She winds her hand back around the hilt, anchoring it to her, anchoring _him_ to her.

Jon unthreads his hand from hers and slides his calloused palm over her thigh, up toward her hip, settling there with ease. He sighs into her shoulder, watching the shadows that flicker over the blade. "Ser Arthur commissioned it for me." His voice grows small, his hand curling over her hip. "Years ago. Before I was truly ready for it."

Sansa leans back against him, taking a deep breath. "You miss him."

There is silence at her shoulder for many long moments, his thumb rubbing circles along her hip in some measure of comfort, she knows. And then his other hand leaves the hilt of the sword in her grasp, fingers gliding over the tops of her thighs, and then dragging back along the swell of her hips, rolling her into him, a low groan leaving his chest at the motion.

Sansa arches slightly at the touch, mouth parting.

"Aye, I do," he rumbles into her neck, nosing at her hair. "But right now," he gets out on a rasp, fingers tugging the edge of her shift up over her thighs greedily, "I'm missing something else."

Sansa hums appreciatively, head lolling back along his shoulder, as she rolls her hips in his lap, reveling in the impatient huff that leaves him. "And what is that?" she manages through her hitched breath, lip caught between her teeth.

He bunches her shift at her waist efficiently, hand dipping down between her thighs. "This," he groans out, fingers sliding over her slickness, a curse grit out against her shoulder when he finds her without her smallclothes.

Her smile curls devilishly across her lips, unseen. She arches back against him, mewling when he slides a finger into her cunt, and she can feel his hardening cock at her backside, bucking against her with a low moan.

"Sansa," he manages in a croak, lips at her throat, a second finger sliding alongside the first.

She gasps, legs spreading over his lap, eyes slipping languidly shut. "Hmm?"

"Put the sword down," he growls out, pumping his fingers slowly in and out of her, his other hand dragging her back along his cock in a steady motion.

She hums in thought a moment, turning her head so that he has better access to her throat. "I don't know," she gets out between pants, smirk rising. "I rather like the feel of it in my hands."

Jon presses a long groan into the skin of her throat, teeth baring over the flesh, his fingers digging painfully into her hip when he grinds her back along his length, hard and aching for her. His fingers curl inside her, his chest pressed tight to her back when she gasps at the touch, at his hungry mouthing at her neck. "Careful," he snarls beneath the cover of her hair. "You might hurt yourself."

Sansa blinks back the haze, one hand leaving the sword in her lap to wrap around his at her hip. "I trust you," she whimpers, cunt clenching around his fingers.

Jon's hand stutters in its motion for the briefest second, his breath catching at the shell of her ear, and then he's pressing into her, forehead braced to her temple, a ragged sigh leaving him, and Sansa feels it all throughout her, a quiver beneath her skin, an ache between her legs that thunders all the way out, to the edges of her fingertips, to the tips of her toes, to the place where his mouth stays pressed to her sweat-dampened skin.

"I trust you," she whispers again, hand leaving his to tug pointedly at the material of his breeches, lifting her hips at the motion, and his hand leaves her hip to tug at his laces immediately, already keen to the meaning, fumbling to rid himself of them, and she laughs at the motion, leaning over the side to set the sword down as gently as she can against the edge of the bed with his fingers still inside her and his breeches being dragging down over his thighs, Jon unwilling to lift her fully from his lap and lose the feel of her. "But just to be safe," she giggles, releasing the hilt and letting it fall, forgotten, jostled to the floor when he tugs her back against him, fingers driving deep inside her, eliciting a sharp gasp when she braces a hand along his thigh to steady herself.

"Fuck the sword," he growls out, grinding against her, panting into her neck, and Sansa laughs again, fumbling for his cheek at her shoulder – anchoring.

* * *

The night before the wedding, Ned takes Jon down into the crypts.

He'd seen the entrance before, caught sight of the twin direwolf statues standing like guards before the darkness.

"The family crypts," Sansa had told him at his side, arm in his as they made their way toward the main courtyard upon the Tyrells' first arrival. He'd slowed to a halt at its edge, her whisper still in his ear.

"And all the Kings of Winter," she'd gone on to say, something wistful about the words, and he'd turned to her, recognized the tender look on her face, that one she always donned when recounting her tales and songs, her age-long loves. He'd been unable to do anything but share her awe, and he hadn't even stepped foot in them.

And yet now, when Ned claps a hand along his shoulder, a heavy sigh leaving him, nodding toward the darkened entrance with a gravelly "Come on then", Jon finds his feet rooted in the dirty snow. He stares long down the corridor, the flicker of torchlight casting faint, eerie shadows across the threshold, and he thinks maybe some things are supposed to stay dead.

But he can't seem to stop drudging up graves he hadn't meant to ever dig, and his mother's is only the first.

He thinks Ned knows this, in some regard, in some small measure. Because he stops to look back at him when Jon does not follow, and the sharp crease to his brow, the gentle dip of his frown, it all seems terribly, terribly unfair.

And Jon could laugh at such a thought.

"You owe this to her, boy," Ned says in a rough voice, and Jon hasn't even the mind to rankle at the address. Ned softens then, a hand wiping down his mouth with a sigh. "You owe this to yourself," he finishes, and after a moment's pause, he turns back to the crypts, striding in without waiting to see if Jon will follow.

He must know he will, though. He must know.

And he would be right.

There are torches propped along the wall at intervals all throughout corridors, the heat of them bleeding into the dirt and stone, suffusing him as he stalks on, following the dark image of his cloak-lined uncle, eyes flitting to the stone statues all along the way.

He does not recognize any of the faces, and he wonders if he should. But then, stone has never done a man justice, and so Jon looks on, follows Lord Stark silently through the turns of shadowed halls, until they slow finally, coming upon a woman who must be his mother, he knows, and yet, could be anyone down here in this haunting tomb.

Jon swallows thickly, coming to stand beside his uncle as he looks up, notices the fresh wreath of winter roses placed along his stone mother's hands.

Ned releases a soft chuckle beside him, and Jon glances toward him, brow raised in question.

Noticing his look, Ned nods to the flowers atop her open palms. "Must've been Sansa," he says.

Jon's eyes prick with tears before he can stop them, his gaze shifting back to the stature with a swiftness, his throat tight when he sucks a harsh breath between his teeth. He rocks back on his heels, bunches his hands into fists at his sides, takes a moment to steady himself.

They stand staring at the statue for an immeasurable amount of time.

Jon is beginning to think it's up to him to say something, but nothing makes any sense to say, and so he stays quiet. And so, he just breathes in the dark.

Lyanna, they called her.

The name feels wrong in his mouth. Nearly as wrong as 'mother', but for none of the right reasons.

Jon hangs his head.

"You know," Ned begins, voice hoarse from disuse, clearing it before he continues, "I realized today that I'd been angry with her for all this time."

Jon looks up at him.

He's staring at his sister's stone visage, chin high, eyes blinking furiously. His mouth is a thin line, a winter's cut, and there is grief there, Jon realizes suddenly. The kind of grief that never leaves.

The kind you lay down beside your bed at night and take up again every morning, like a mantle.

"For leaving us," he says, jaw clenching.

Jon turns his gaze back to the floor. "And angry at me," he finishes for him lowly, barely a whisper.

 _For killing her_ , he doesn't say.

Ned turns his heavy grey gaze upon him, jaw still clenched. "For a time," he tells him.

Some part of Jon is grateful for the admission. Grateful that Ned does not spare him the lance of his honesty, biting though it is.

The torches flicker around them. The heat settles slow into their bones.

Jon stays staring at the ground.

"I almost lost my wife when Arya came into this world," Ned says suddenly, voice tight.

Jon licks his lips, takes a steady breath. He does not lift his gaze.

"I remember thinking," Ned begins, throat constricting, shaking his head, "'How can such a small...such a small, _helpless_ thing, ever be a killer?'" The words are a struggle, his voice cracking with them, his hand going over his face for a blinding, breathless moment.

Jon finally looks up at his mother. She is unmoved. Everlasting. He imagines she is cold to the touch, even with the blaring heat of the torches at their sides.

Something comes undone inside him, splintering out.

"You didn't take her from me," Ned says finally, hand drawn down over his mouth. "The gods did. And for whatever reason, I cannot fathom, but – but this I know. You did not take her from me." He turns then, watches Jon in the dim shadows, eyes a harrowing grey.

Jon takes a breath, holds it tight in his lungs, uncurls the fists at his sides. He can only nod, his voice laying slaughtered in his throat. He does not trust it to air.

Ned sighs deeply, turning back to Lyanna's statue. "I know you have questions. And I'm afraid I have very few answers. I never saw her again after she left Winterfell with Rhaegar. I never...never got to say goodbye. I mean, I don't - I don't even remember what words we last spoke to each other." He shakes his head, clears his throat.

Jon finally looks to him, and when their eyes meet, he finds the tears are already hot along his lids, his mouth a trembling line, the breath raking from him in short, shallow bursts.

It's a keen sort of longing. The regretful kind.

Jon feels it curl tight around his heart and _tug_ , splitting all those years of resentment into shards that will never fit together properly again – that will never make a whole.

In pieces, Jon realizes.

In pieces does it go.

He may collect them bit by bit – he may clutch them tight to his chest, settle them side by side hoping for them to slip into place like jigsaws, but they will always stay as pieces.

This is how longing goes.

It is never whole.

"I cannot tell you what she hoped for in leaving, or what she hoped for in your father," Ned says on a rough exhale, shoulders pulling back. His eyes return to his sister, eyes softening somewhat.

Jon is lost somewhere between them.

The shadows make for fine comfort here.

"But I can tell you this," he says, voice sure suddenly, a step taken toward him, the brush of his shoulder just barely registering to Jon, his hand anchoring along the back of Jon's neck like a ghost, "She would have loved you."

Jon blinks up at him, unable to stem the sob that tears through his exhale, nor the quiver to his lip. "Uncle."

"As fiercely as she loved any of us, she would have loved _you_ ," he tells him, hand tightening over his neck, "Above all else," he promises, eyes intent on his, head dipped toward his nephew's, the tremble to his jaw staggering Jon where he stands.

He misses her, Jon realizes. And he doesn't know how.

He misses her more than he's ever missed anything.

'Lyanna's boy', they call him.

And oh, how he yearns for it now.

_Lyanna's boy, Lyanna's boy, Lyanna's boy._

Like a song. Like a promise.

He thinks he would have liked to have a mother, after all. Maybe especially her.

Ned takes a soldiering breath, drags his hand from Jon's neck. Many moments pass as he stands staring at his sister's statue once more. And then he takes a step back, glancing at Jon one final time. "Take your time," he says, and nothing more. He lays a hand along his shoulder, a gentle squeeze, and then he's gone, disappearing the way he came, and Jon is left staring at his stone mother, this silent ghost, this reminder of everything he'd never thought to want.

He doesn't know how long he stands there. He only knows that the shadows of the torches have shifted when Sansa makes her way slowly toward him. He sees her in his peripheral, has become attuned to her footsteps.

He would know her anywhere, after all.

"My lord," she greets, voice a gentle lull, and he cannot help the breath that leaves him at the words.

Like a lullaby. Like a cradle of winter wind.

Jon closes his eyes and breathes deep.

"I'm sorry if I've intruded," she says, halting just out of reach, her hands bundled tightly before her.

"You haven't," he tells her, a slow shake to his head, and the words are raspy for their disuse.

Sansa stays standing just outside his reach, watching him quietly, and he stretches a hand out toward her, eyes opening to fix once again on his stone mother.

She comes dutifully, a whisper of a promise. She takes his arm, settles against his side to stare up at her aunt, a reverent silence overtaking the both of them.

His eyes drift to the winter roses immediately, but his tongue is still heavy with loss, still unused to these words. They start and stop and start again along his tongue, only to be swallowed back with uncertainty.

Sansa stays quiet at his side, mindful of his turbulence, unobtrusive in her presence.

He grips at her arm with a need he doesn't know how to voice.

"I don't know what to say to her," he croaks out finally, a breath catching jagged and tear-laced in his throat.

Sansa tips her head up toward him, gazing at him quietly, before she brushes a loose curl back from his forehead, her hand grazing his temple in a slowness that has him leaning toward the touch, his mouth parting silently.

She settles her hand at his shoulder, her gaze still fixed to his profile. "Then say nothing," she tells him. "Or say everything – all of it."

Jon clenches his jaw, eyes blinking furiously through their salt-sheen.

Sansa sighs beside him, her hand dragging down from his shoulder, along his arm, settling against her other hand held in the crook of his elbow. "Say what you must. There is no need for more."

Jon screws his eyes shut, a shuddering breath leaving him.

 _Did you know all this would happen?_ he means to ask her, as though that is the question that matters.

Jon shakes his head, frown deepening.

And more than that –

More than that, he cannot stop the way it all comes frothing to the surface.

_Did you know what you risked when you did it? Did you ever regret it? Did you wish for me, or was I simply an accident? Did you welcome me when you finally knew? Did you sing to me? Did you laugh when I kicked? Did you call me yours?_

And this is where he breaks.

 _Did you suffer, in the end? Did it hurt beyond imagining? Did you resent me for it? Did you wish I'd never been? Did you even hold me before the end? Did you_ want _to?_

Jon sucks a sharp breath through his teeth.

_And did you cry?_

Gods, but he hopes she didn't. He hopes beyond anything else that she didn't cry for him. Not for him, not for – _him_.

Jon's head dips down, a hand braced to his mouth.

Sansa stares at him with tear-filled eyes, a soft sniffle leaving her, and then she wipes at her eyes, pulls her hand from the crook of his elbow, smoothing down her skirts in a nervous, self-conscious habit that he has grown far too accustomed to now to ever dismiss again.

"I'll not intrude any longer, my lord," she says on a shaky whisper, turning to leave him.

_And did you hope, in the end? Even through the pain – did you hope? Like I have?_

Jon reaches out, snatching for her hand before she can step any further.

Sansa stills in his grasp, glancing down to his touch, to the needy curl of his fingers along hers.

"Stay," Jon rasps, eyes still fixed to the statue before him, still unwavering, still tear-laced.

Sansa opens her mouth, closes it, stares at him in the flickering torchlight of the crypt.

"Please," he manages, voice barely more than a choke, "Will you stay?"

She stays watching him in the faint light, her hand limp in his trembling grasp, in his fervent grip.

Eons and epochs and the long wind of winter passes through them before she breathes again, before she steps toward him, before she turns her palm and threads her fingers through his.

"Okay," she says simply, stepping into his side.

Jon nods, unable to look at her, face crumbling, hand over his eyes when the first sob takes him. "Okay," he says, a tremulous gasp, hand gripping hers.

Sansa nods, nose pressed to the furs at his shoulder. "Okay," she says.

And so they stay.

And so he weeps.

And so it goes – in pieces.

(Bit by bit, it falls away. Bit by bit, they make a whole.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know that whole cliche about things only being good because shit's about to hit the fan? Yeah. I'm totally claiming that cliche right the fuck now. 
> 
> ALL the shit. And ALL the fans.
> 
> Brace for impact.


	11. Immutable

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It is not a lukewarm sentiment at all.
> 
> No.
> 
> This love is a fever. This love is dizzying."
> 
> \- Jon and Sansa. Like the curve of the horizon, when the moon breaks from beneath its bow.

Disclaimer: I own nothing, I make no money.

From Instep to Heel

Chapter Eleven: Immutable

" _It is not a lukewarm sentiment at all._

_No._

_This love is a fever. This love is_ dizzying _."_

\- Jon and Sansa. Like the curve of the horizon, when the moon breaks from beneath its bow.

* * *

The godswood is gleaming in the light of dusk, a faint orange glinting off the snow, the shadow of red weirwood leaves mingling with the retreating light, so that it isn't a grey, winter's visage that greets the couple before the heart tree, but a glimpse of summer, undimmed.

Sansa smiles as Margaery makes her way to Robb, as they take hands before the heart tree, as they whisper their oaths before the sight of the old gods.

A summer's promise, made on the cusp of winter.

Sansa reaches for Jon's hand at her side, winding her fingers through his. He glances to her at the motion, silent and steady. When the ceremony is finished, she finds he will not relinquish her hold, and she is grateful for it, treading back toward the castle with his warm thumb grazing over her knuckles, her smile sacred and singular, as they walk beside each other, hand in hand.

She does not notice her mother's gaze upon the two of them, watchful and tender in equal measure.

The ale flows freely that night, for the heir to Winterfell has taken a wife, and Sansa can barely contain her joy when the music begins, when her siblings toast their newest addition, when the people take to the floor, and this – _this_ , she reminds herself –

This is home.

"Well, she's smart, at least," Arya says at Sansa's side from their place at the head table.

Sansa arches a brow her sister's way.

Arya rolls her eyes, adjusting the seat of her dress, and Sansa smothers her smirk at the motion. "Smarter than him in some respects," she adds on, reaching for her wine glass. "He'll need that."

Sansa cocks her head at her sister. "What do you mean?"

Arya notices her look, pausing her wineglass halfway to her mouth. "Robb is cunning enough on his own, but you and I both know he can be impetuous."

Sansa laughs at the comment, taking a sip of her own wine. "That he can be."

"He'll need her," Arya continues on, a nod accompanying the words. "Your marriage can only do so much to protect the North," she finishes softly, eyes shifting along the table, catching along their younger brothers as they laugh, unobservant, several seats down.

Sansa's laugh dies in her throat. "Arya."

Her sister huffs, turning more fully in her seat to face Sansa. "I get it, Sansa, I do. And maybe I didn't always, but I do now." Her eyes flick to the dancefloor where Jon is twirling around the floor with their mother in his arms. "I understand now."

Sansa's gaze flickers at the words, a nostalgia for their youth she hadn't thought to miss until now. How much has Mother shared with her since her leaving? Does she know what this alliance took from her? What it demanded? What life it thrust upon her? Does she understand now, finally, what it means to be a lady of a Great House? Arya has always been a raucous child, after all, but she has always been fiercely loving, as well - always devoted.

Sansa stares at her younger sister, fingers tightening over her wine glass. "And what do you think you understand?" she asks softly, hoping – perhaps in vain - to keep her little sister just that, for a while longer.

Her little sister.

Untouched by the demands of the world.

Arya dips her head, a look of disquiet gracing her features, and Sansa is taken aback by the image.

Had she been gone for so long? Had she missed so much, to find such a change in her so alarming?

(She realizes suddenly, that she does not want for her sister what she herself has – she wants _more_.)

Sansa catches sight of Jon dancing with her mother, their conversation stifled by the flood of bodies, and she narrows her eyes at the sight, wanting to hear their shared words and yet, wanting to stay blissfully unaware of them.

"I understand that it wasn't your choice," Arya says quietly. "But I know that when Father first told you about the betrothal, you didn't hesitate."

Sansa looks back to her sister, a heaviness in her chest. "That wasn't -"

"So thank you," she says, eyes fixing to hers.

Sansa clamps her mouth shut.

"If that means anything to you, at all. For...I don't know, for everything, I guess. For all of it – thank you."

_We are the eldest of House Stark. We marry for duty – so that our younger siblings may yet marry for love. It is not something I regret._

No, she will never regret it.

Sansa's mouth parts, words a tangled mess in her throat, eyes wet suddenly, and Arya scoffs a laugh when she notices the expression, taking a swig from her wineglass. "Gods," she says, wiping at her mouth, "Don't go crying on me now."

Sansa pushes a frustrated breath through her lips, even as she smiles, shaking the wetness from her eyes. "Oh, you wretched thing," she laughs, voice watery.

Arya smiles behind the rim of her glass.

They sit in comfortable silence for a time, watching the dancefloor. Robb is holding Margaery close, oblivious to the other dancers around them, forehead tipped to hers, and Sansa warms at the sight.

Arya shifts in her seat slightly, catching Sansa's attention again, and she finds her sister staring into the cup of her wineglass, swirling it slowly in her agile hand. Her brows are drawn down in thought.

Sansa sighs. "What is it, now?"

Arya purses her lips, brow a furrowed line. "I don't pretend to know what it's like in the capital, or all the intricacies between you and Jon, or what it means to call Targaryens _family_ ," she begins, almost a hiss on the last word, her cup stilled now in her hand, "But you would tell me, wouldn't you, if you were unhappy?" She glances up then.

And Sansa is struck by how young she is, even for all her bluster. How terribly, terribly young. She offers a tight smile, head tipped toward her. "Happiness is not all there is, Arya."

She frowns at that. "Shouldn't it be?"

A soft laugh escapes her then, rueful and worn. She looks back out to the floor, wineglass tipped to her lips. "Then I pray you never love something so dangerous," she tells her sister, a thaw to her voice.

When Arya does not answer, Sansa glances across to her, face softening somewhat, hand loosening around the stem of her wineglass. "Arya..."

"Is that what it is between you and Jon?" she asks suddenly, eyes unblinking. "Love?"

Sansa presses her tongue to the back of her teeth, staring at her, taking a long, deep breath.

"Or danger?" Arya finishes, head cocked.

Sansa licks her lips, tastes the wine there like memory. "Perhaps a bit of both," she whispers, turning away again, eyes flitting to the glass in her hand.

Arya stays blessedly silent at that, nodding as she leans back in her chair, and Sansa swallows thickly, tries to rein in her breath, feels the quake beneath her skin smooth out into a barely-there thrum. She settles in her seat a bit surer, a bit steadier.

Several moments pass, and then Arya laughs, and the sound is enough to ease the tension from Sansa's shoulders entirely when she glances back to her.

She's watching the dancefloor, a crooked grin breaking across her face as she motions with her glass toward the floor. "I think the only danger right now is leaving your poor husband to Mother's mercy," she chuckles.

Sansa catches sight of what she means, the uneasy expression on Jon's face when he takes a turn with Lady Stark, and she can't help but laugh as well.

She leans toward Arya, a conspiratorial look upon her face. "Should I rescue him, do you think?"

Arya nods fervently. "You should," she urges, grin widening.

Sansa sets her glass down, standing swiftly, one last grateful look sent Arya's way, with no words to accompany it.

(Because what words could she use, anyway? What could ever be pulled from the unsaid between them?)

Sansa thinks it may always be thus with them, and she finds now, suddenly, that she's okay with that. So, she simply smiles, and Arya smiles back. When she leaves the table, she is inexplicably lighter.

She finds Jon easily, so attuned to his presence as she is. He meets her eyes well before she's even near him, a grateful look passing over his features, slowing slightly with Catelyn in his arms. Her mother glances over her shoulder at what has caught her newest son's attention, only to smile at Sansa's presence when she comes upon her.

"Mother, if I may..." She motions toward her husband.

"Of course," she says, guiding her into Jon's embrace, stepping back gracefully with a nod Jon's way, a look passed between them, and then she's gone, and Sansa is left smirking at her husband as he releases a breath of relief.

"Should I have come to your rescue sooner?" she asks impishly, hand curving around his shoulder.

Jon sighs, taking Sansa for a turn, hand settling at the small of her back familiarly, his other hand cradling her own in his, holding it to his chest when he sweeps her out across the floor. "Is that what this is? A rescue?" His voice is low and teasing.

"You looked in need," she laughs.

"Ah," Jon says, dancing smoothly across the floor with her. "Yes, well, your mother is an intimidating sort, I'll give you that."

"Did you expect otherwise?"

"Not with a daughter like you," he answers on a chuckle, shaking his head.

Something about the comment has Sansa's chest tightening uncontrollably, a flutter in her gut, her smile spreading out slowly and easily. Warm. She feels warm at the tease.

They dance comfortably for another few moments, and Sansa flexes her hand in his, presses her fingertips to his chest, feels his calloused palm curve tighter around her hand. She clears her throat, glancing out across the floor to the other dancers. "And what did she say to you?"

A soft breath leaves him, and Sansa glances back to find his gaze thoughtful, the quirk of his lip endearing beyond all measure. "Just a bit of motherly advice."

She raises her brows.

He huffs a laugh, his thumb stroking along the small of her back in ease when he leads them around the floor. "Well-intended, I assure you."

She doesn't answer that, remembering instead the way he had wept the night before at the base of his own mother's statue, how he had gripped her hand in his, how he had asked her to stay, voice broken and spent.

Her throat goes dry, something impassioned and protective lodging in her chest, tightening her hold on him. She presses her cheek to his shoulder, grips him like a promise.

(Wolves are not ones to relinquish easily, after all.)

She hasn't let go – not since he clutched her hand in his down in the crypts and bared himself bloody.

Somewhere inside, she hasn't let go.

It's alarmingly fierce, this possession that fills her.

Jon clears his throat, glancing up at the head table where Arya has stood from her seat to join her younger brothers farther down. He takes a moment, seeming to consider his words, before dipping his mouth to her ear and sighing softly. "Another fight with your sister?" he asks cautiously.

Sansa turns her head to gaze his way.

He's looking at her with his brow furrowed in concern, his eyes searching hers.

It unwinds the tangle in her chest somewhat. "No," she confesses, a worn exhale accompanying the words as she shakes her head. "That isn't it."

Jon watches her with hooded eyes, sweeping her past the other couples with practiced ease. "Then what?"

She furrows her brows a moment, considering. "I don't like how easily she reads people," she says finally.

Jon barks a laugh at that, but silences it quickly at Sansa's narrowed gaze. He clears his throat. "And is that what bothers you? That your sister may actually understand you? I'd think you'd appreciate such a thing."

Sansa opens her mouth, catches the words along her tongue. She closes it in quiet thought, his words rattling around her skull. "It's unnerving," she says on a whisper.

Jon nods, twirling her out, pulling her back in, and she doesn't think about how easily she fits to him now, how seamlessly she curls back against his chest, her hand slipping into his as though it has always belonged there.

Neither of them comment on it, content to simply continue the dance, bodies fitted together in an uninterrupted line.

Sansa lays her head against his shoulder again, glancing out across the floor as they slow step to the music. "I'm sure Mother's been preparing her for her own marriage, acquainting her with the current status of all the houses, of our place in court, of our..." She stops, swallows, smacks her lips on a scoff, head rearing back. "Is it so strange? To want her to stay blissfully unaware of such things? To want a marriage for her that may be _her_ choice?" She huffs, hand tightening over his shoulder, eyes glaring out over the crowd, catching sight of Arya toasting with their younger brothers now.

Jon stays silent.

She looks back to him, her frustration marring her features, only to blink startled eyes at him when she catches the pained expression on his face, his eyes fixed to the floor rather than on her.

"You mean, a marriage unlike ours?" he gets out roughly, meeting her eyes finally.

She pulls back from him slightly, contrition in her voice. "My lord – "

But he shakes his head, tugs her back to him, fitted to his chest so smoothly, so easily, his hand tight along her back, and she finds she's grateful for the touch, for the way he never lets her go far. Her breath leaves her in a rattle.

"I don't mean..." he begins, unable to finish. He huffs his own frustration, shaking his head. "I only mean..."

Sansa pulls her hand from his chest to touch her fingers to his lips. "I know exactly what you mean," she interrupts gently, voice hitching somewhat on the warm puff of air between his lips that brushes her fingertips.

His eyes stay fixed to hers, all muted heat and Stark grey, his lips parting, voice stalling. She goes to retract her hand but he catches it before she can, holding it to his mouth, lips grazing so hesitantly against her skin she can't be sure whether to call it a kiss or not.

(Maybe it's just a brush of air, a hint of pressure, heat playing like memory along her skin.)

"You would be my choice," he whispers, voice hoarse.

Sansa's gaze shoots up from her fingers splayed over his mouth to catch along his eyes, her chest rising uneasily, body slumping in his arms as their steps slow into a gentle sway.

Everything in her crashes to a halt.

And then he's dipping his gaze down, sword-roughened hand curling along hers, holding her fingers firmly against his mouth, and there is no mistaking the touch now, no mistaking the slow and ardent kiss he presses to her fingertips, warm lips parting, his thumb grazing over the arch of her palm when a ragged breath leaves him.

Sansa leans into him unconsciously, staring, taken by the sight of his mouth, an inexplicable pull in her gut, like a knot coming undone, her eyes fluttering at the intimacy of the kiss.

"Given the chance," he says, breath hot against her hand, "If things had been different, I think – " He stops, swallows, slides his hand further across her back to hold her more tightly to him, steps faltering in their slow rocking. "I think you would always be my choice," he exhales into her skin, drawing her hand down from his mouth slowly, tremulously, anchoring it back along his chest as he drags his gaze up to hers again.

She finds the words along her tongue before she can even question them, mouth opening with a sureness she hasn't felt in too long. "And you would be mine," she gets out on a shaky breath.

Jon blinks at her, mouth tightening into a thin line, his chest rising and falling so deeply it's making her lightheaded.

She takes a breath, shifts her gaze to his chest, licks her lips in some semblance of calm, and then she's laughing, shoulders shaking with it – or maybe it's a sob. It comes undone from her chest with very near the same intensity, either way, silencing only when he leans forward and braces his forehead to hers.

Their dance has come to a halt, limbs easing into surrender of their own accord.

"Sansa..."

When she squeezes her eyes shut and reaches her hands around his neck, draws him into her, nestles her chin at his shoulder and wraps her arms tight around his back, she doesn't care that they're standing motionless in the center of the floor. They could be anywhere - in the godswood, in their chambers back at King's Landing, even on the same steps where they met.

(They could be dancing for the very first time, _truly_ dancing – steps made in the same direction, arms clasped.)

They could be anywhere, and nothing would ever feel so immediate as his heart pressed up against hers, the uneven hammering like a barrage at her ears.

It's terrifying, and thrilling, and it overtakes her.

(Between love and danger.)

Her fingers curl at his back, his name an unwavering sigh at the parted seam of her lips.

(Perhaps a bit of both.)

* * *

It isn't until hours later, when the last of the guests are meandering from the great hall, when Arya is herding an exhausted Rickon away from his third plate, when Bran and Theon settle by the dying fire for another heated argument, fresh cups of ale between their hands, when Ned and Catelyn shake their heads at the sight, walking arm and arm from the hall, when Robb and Margaery have long left the celebration in favor of the seclusion their wedding chambers may offer –

Sansa takes Jon by the hand and leads him through the moonlit corridors toward their own chambers.

He's staring at the space between her shoulder blades, and then along the stream of copper hair gliding down the back of her dress, down to the pale stretch of skin at her wrist when her sleeve drags up with the motion of tugging him along.

And then she laughs, winter-bright, resounding.

His breath catches, and all at once, Jon discovers two immutable facts.

(The first...)

She glances back at him, cheeks flushed with wine, and he can do nothing but stare. He clenches his jaw.

The first –

"Come here," he whispers on a desolate breath, fingers tightening over hers and dragging her back against him, hearing her yelp in surprise and laugh further, stumbling with her back hitting his chest. He winds his other hand around her waist, holding her to him.

"My lord," she admonishes, glancing about the empty corridor for any observers, but at this hour, the wedding feast has sent everyone to their beds with exhaustion.

He buries his face in her neck, breathing deep, both hands snaking around her waist possessively now. He presses into her and she stumbles forward, a hand going up to cup his cheek.

Maybe it's the haze of wine that makes him all hands. Maybe it's the haze of something stronger.

"Jon, wait," she laughs again, even as she bares her throat for his mouth when he presses a fervent kiss to the slope of her neck.

His fingers dig into her sides and he presses his hips to hers meaningfully, his desire apparent. "I want you," he mumbles at her throat, nosing her hair aside. It rakes from him like a confession – drags like a damnation.

There is something achingly vulnerable in the way he says it, and he wants to swallow the tremble down, wants to drown it in his sodden lungs, smother it in the dark.

Sansa catches the gasp at the edge of her tongue, glancing back down the hall. Their chambers are only two short turns away, and yet, Jon cannot find it in himself to wait - to hold her, to taste her, to know she is real, here, at his touch – _here._

He cannot wait. _Will_ not wait.

(Not another second without her.)

"Gods, do I want you, Sansa," he pants out, pushing her toward the wall, hands gliding up and down her sides, chest pressed tight to her back. She braces against the stone with a sharp inhale, arching back against him.

"Here?" she asks deliriously, voice wavering. "Now?"

Jon slides a hand up her chest, palming at her breast, groaning into her neck when he bucks against her. "Here," he growls, squeezing her breast and relishing in the scrape of air that leaves her lungs. " _Now_." And then he's scrambling for her skirts, frantic and heated.

Sansa pants beneath his hands, turning in his hold, reaching for his chest. "Jon. _Jon_."

One of his hands abandons her skirts to push her back along the wall, his mouth hovering over hers, and it's raging through him now, this desperation, this reckless hunger. "I need to be inside you," he groans out, rucking her skirts up, and he catches the dark glint in her eye, the way her mouth opens at his words, how her legs are already spreading for him, and he presses into her, braces his forehead to hers. It's an impatient fumble then, and he moans appreciatively when she helps drag her skirts up, his hand already shoving beneath her smallclothes, fingers curling up into her, hiking her up along the wall. He watches the moment it happens, watches her eyes widen, hands going for his shoulders, mouth tipping open on a quiet gasp. He rocks into her, chest heaving. "Fuck, I need this," he snarls out. "Need to feel you." And he doesn't like how desperate he sounds, how deliriously, staggeringly desperate. Jon drops his head to her shoulder, growling out his frustration, yanking at the laces to his breeches. Sansa is whining at his ear, trembling in his arms, grasping along his back for purchase, hips chasing his touch. When he's finally free of his breeches, he drags his hand from her cunt, a spike of pride resounding through him at the low sound of protest that eases from her. He draws his head back to gaze at her. She blinks in the moonlight at him, face partially hidden in shadow, and yet even here, even in this half-light, he can see her.

He can _always_ see her – the image of her imprinted along the backs of his lids, so that even when he closes his eyes, she is there.

She is there.

Jon shudders beneath the weight of that look, beneath the ferocity of her gaze, and his eyes are dark and unblinking on hers when he finally thrusts up into her, hauling one thigh up over his hip, burying himself inside her with a long groan.

Sansa's mouth parts, a muttered curse falling whisper-soft from her lips, her head lolling back against the stone. Jon digs his fingers into the moon-pale flesh of her thigh, scrambling for her other leg, hefting her up off the floor, hips pinning her to the wall with a grunt.

(Two immutable facts.)

"Jon," she moans, arms winding around his neck, and he falters, breath tight, eyes fixed to the pale stretch of her throat bared beneath the faint moonlight.

She unfurls for him like a fist, with all the force of it hitting him square in the chest.

"Again," he demands, gaze still fixed to her face, screwed tight with pleasure. "Say my name."

Sansa bites her lip, back scraping up the stone with each thrust. She lifts her head off the wall, stares down at him with frost-sharp eyes.

They linger there for an infinite moment, with Jon fucking her against the wall, with Sansa trying desperately to catch her breath, with the echo of their pants and curses clattering around the cold stone hall with resounding clarity.

And then –

" _Jon_ ," she whines, voice hitching, like it's the first word she's ever said – the mouthing of a deity, the sound a sacred, blistering thing upon her lips – all-encompassing.

Jon feels it ricochet through him, setting his skin to quaking, and without thought, he releases one of her thighs to reach up to her throat instead, hand wrapping around the pale flesh over her pulse point, his thumb digging into the space beneath her chin.

A croak leaves her, her voice like shattered stone in her throat.

He only fucks her harder.

A sound brews in his chest, somewhere between a growl and a choke, as he leans forward once more, bracing his forehead to hers again, his hand still pressed to her throat. He swallows back the whine, eyes fluttering shut as his hips slam into hers. "Say it again," he demands, the words a harsh exhale, punctured by his brutal thrusts.

Sansa's mewls break against his mouth like a taunt, her nails clawing at his back, her ankles hooking at the base of his spine, her mouth opening on a sharp gasp, back arching, cunt clenching, chest rising –

" _Jon_ ," she whimpers out, a broken cry.

Jon's hips stutter in their pace, growing hasty and sloppy, a recklessness overtaking him. His hand slides up her throat, gripping at her jaw, his thumb grazing her lips. "Fuck, Sansa, do you know what you do to me?" he groans out.

He hikes her thigh higher up his hip, driving into her, frantic, needy, so close, so fucking close and yet, it isn't enough. It's never enough.

"Tell me again that you want me," she pants out, tongue darting out to wet her lips, his thumb pressed to the corner of her mouth, that delicate, cutting mouth, so pink and ripe for him, and he buries himself between her thighs with a tight groan, pumping into her on a near sob.

"Gods, but I want you," he promises with a labored grunt. "I _always_ want you. I always – always – fuck, I can't get enough. Can't fucking get enough. Need you, Sansa," he mutters deliriously, driving into her with a fury, with a savageness that terrifies him in its intensity. "Fucking _need_ you," he begs, "Sansa, Sansa, _Sansa –_ " His hand trembles at her jaw, his thumb dipping almost painfully into the curve of her mouth, his hips snapping into hers, hot breath panted at her lips, and he's - he's -

"Sansa, I think I – I think I – " and he squeezes his eyes shut, tastes the tartness on his tongue, tries to swallow it back, but there's no use. No fucking use anymore, and he's _drowning_ in it, absolutely mauled from the inside out, wrecked and beaten and begging for more. For _her_. For the way her name fills his lungs near to bursting.

And then she braces her hands at his cheeks, rears his head back, meets his gaze when he finally drags his eyes open to watch her, his hand falling from her jaw to hold the back of her neck, to hold her, to hold her –

To _hold_ her.

"I know," she says, a desperate pant, tears gathering at the corners of her eyes, glistening brilliantly.

It's his undoing – a jagged line drawn straight down the seam of his heart, rending him helplessly wide, split-open at the root.

"I know," she whimpers, and he's spilling instantly, gasping, trembling with the force of it, rutting into her again and again and again, mouth parted on a ragged cry, hand gripping the back of her neck like an anchor, drowning in her shallow pants, mouth so tauntingly close to hers.

It's the sort of undoing that quietly terrifies.

Because it isn't her voice that renders him so cleanly helpless. It isn't her hands at his cheeks or her legs around his waist or her chest heaving against his. It isn't even the wet, waiting heat of her cunt wrapped tight around his cock.

No.

It's her _eyes_.

Those dusk-blue eyes - when the sky matches the sea, when it is an unshakeable, unyielding line, when it is a horizon that stretches long into the light.

Her eyes, for fuck's sake.

And here he is, spilling like a green boy. At her _fucking eyes_.

Jon drops his head to her shoulder, winded, ragged, wrecked.

(His breath catches, and all at once, Jon realizes two immutable facts.

The first: that he is irrevocably in love with her.

And the second – )

* * *

Jon has seen his fair share of sunrises. Sometimes, it comes in an orange-hued stream through his bedside window, warm upon his skin, lazy and slow and teasing, curling over his form like a languid summer. Sometimes, it comes sharp and instant across the waters of Blackwater Bay, glinting like a shard along the water's surface, a cut of white and startlingly dry blue. Sometimes, it comes crisp and clean, shifting through the thick foliage of King's Landing's gardens in a kaleidoscope of color, casting prisms against the sun-beat Keep, landing in stained-glass streams through the thin, high windows of the throne room.

But today it comes blood red along the horizon, the filter of weirwood leaves casting a crimson shadow against the snow, edging slowly across the banks toward his boots, curving up, swallowing him whole, enveloping him like a thick, Northern pelt – bled dry and salted to tan.

It comes like a beast finally laid to rest.

Jon swallows thickly, glancing up into the shade of the heart tree. The leaves shift in the wind, whispering their ancient secrets, a promise of forgotten gods gliding away on a gust.

He sighs, chest heaving with it. His hand goes to the leather strap across his chest, fingers brushing over the secret wolf at his heart, his wife's hand-sewn cloak adorning his shoulders.

His wife.

Sansa.

Jon chuckles to himself, the sound dark and bitten off.

It is such an easy thing now, to love her. To _know_ what it means to love her. It is not a lukewarm sentiment at all.

No.

This love is a fever. This love is _dizzying_.

Jon catches the rough exhale along his tongue, never lets it to air.

He hears her steady footfalls in the snow well before he realizes he's been waiting for them.

And so, she comes to him trailing the sunrise.

(But this beast is not yet ready for rest.)

"My lord," she greets, stepping up beside him.

He glances to her, face somber-set. He offers a slight quirk of his lip, a gentle greeting. She does not bother to smother the warmth of her own smile, the easy intimacy of it staggering him even now, even after all this time.

_Dizzying_ , he remembers, reaching blindly for anchorage.

Jon swallows tightly, head bowed her way, his arm going out on offer instinctually. She takes it with ease, with familiarity, so fitted to each other they have become.

There are no eyes in this godswood, and yet, he extends his arm. No eyes, and yet, she takes it. They reach for each other on instinct, on unspoken need. Thus they greet the morning.

It's many moments before Sansa is sighing beside him, hand curling at his elbow. "I hadn't expected to find you here," she says.

He only offers a grunt of acknowledgement.

Sansa peers up at him, a single brow raised. "Have I lost you, husband?" she asks softly, a laugh lining her words.

"Never," he says on instinct, the word already lighting his tongue before he has a mind to temper it. He clears his throat, shifts against her until he's turned into her side, gaze meeting hers. "Your home is..." And then he stops. Because no words he can think to say will ever do it justice.

But perhaps she knows this, because she only smiles at him, nodding, eyes softening, fingers threading together around his arm. "It is," she says, as though she'd heard his intended words, and suddenly, everything he'd meant to say, or had wanted to say, or _could_ have said, is left spilling into the snow at their feet.

_It is, it is, it is._

("Your home," he'd said. _Ours,_ he'd meant – or wanted to, at least.)

And this is where he makes a choice.

Jon turns fully to her, taking her hands in his, thumbs grazing over her glove-clad knuckles. He breathes deep, meets her gaze hesitantly. "Sansa."

Her brows furrow, her lips pursing, words at the tip of her tongue, he knows, but he can't have it – can't weather them, not yet, not until he's shared what he's needed to for far too long to be called proper.

"I don't want to leave," he says on a rushed exhale, gaze falling, shoulders slumping with the confession, because it's fear, he realizes – it's fear that's clogging up his throat and turning him rancid.

Sansa opens her mouth, closes it, tries again. "Nor do I," she gets out softly.

Jon rakes a hand through his hair, shaking his head, a gruff sigh leaving him. "But you and I both know that's impossible." It's a hiss that leaves him. Self-chastising. Regretful.

Sansa stares at him a moment, considering, before dipping her head, quiet as the grave.

Jon huffs his frustration. "Gods, Sansa, if I could...if I could – "

"But you can't," she says on a croak, voice trembling. She nods, mostly to herself, drawing a deep breath in before she looks back up at him. "I think I've always known that."

Jon stays staring at her beneath the blood shadow of the weirwood, the sunrise a distant, gleaming thing now. Unreachable.

It comes rushing back to him in waves, in fierce, uncontrollable waves.

" _I will listen."_

" _I trust you."_

" _And you would be mine."_

His eyes slip shut on an exhale, hands gliding up her arms, drawing her into him, holding her there at his chest. He quakes all the way down to his bones when she slips her palms up his chest to brace against him.

He opens his eyes to watch her.

(This is where he makes a choice.)

"Sansa, I have to tell you something," he manages on a choke, the words already rotting on his tongue.

She peers at him with her head cocked, eyes shifting between his. She nods, quiet and patient.

It makes the knot in his chest tighten inexplicably. He tries to swallow it down, tries to drown it in his lungs, but it comes alive again, this guilt. This shame.

He'd promised himself he would warn Rhaenys first. He'd _promised_ himself never to hurt her like that again. But he's finding, now, with a dark sort of inevitability, that such a promise could never be upheld.

Stay silent, or speak.

Betray one, or the other.

In the end, there are no good choices.

Jon takes a solid breath, winds his shaking hands around her elbows.

(Perhaps there may still be a _right_ choice, though - as painful as it is needed.)

He chooses Sansa. He's said as much last night. He's _meant_ as much. And he will not dishonor that choice any longer.

It is such an easy thing now, after all, to love her. And oh, does he love her. But that which he loves, he wishes to be free –

Even from him.

Sansa tips her head, mouth parting, lids fluttering low over her eyes, and he realizes – suddenly, blaringly - that he is half a breath away from kissing her, from dragging her face to his unrepentantly, from crushing his mouth to hers in a fit of fever.

It sends him spinning.

The panic is rife within him then, so dangerously sharp in his gut that his words come out on a near sob, "Sansa, you need to know – "

"Pardon, m'lord," a gruff voice interrupts from several feet away, and Jon whips his head to the sound, a tangled mix of frustration and relief spilling into his gut when he catches the bowed head of a servant, eyes drawn down to the snow at their feet.

Sansa pulls away as well with their sudden audience, clearing her throat, hands slipping down his chest to rest at his waist instead.

Jon blinks wildly, heart still hammering at his ribs, fingers clenched around Sansa's arms. He licks his lips, tries to rein in his breathing. "What is it?" he snaps, regretting the bite instantly. His face softens minutely when the man flinches somewhat at his tone.

"Apologies for the early hour, m'lord," he continues, gaze finally lifting, "But a raven's come for you this morn, bearing the king's seal." He holds the sealed scroll up for inspection. "I thought it best not to wait," he adds on, stepping toward them hesitantly.

Jon sighs, releasing Sansa to hold a palm out expectantly. "You thought right," he relents, voice gruff, dismissing the man with a nod when the scroll is finally placed in his hand. The sound of his retreating footsteps is drowned out by the crinkle of parchment when Jon unfurls the scroll, breaking the wax seal impatiently.

Sansa grasps her hands before her, eyes perusing him for any reaction.

Jon stiffens as he reads, fingers curling tight over the parchment.

"What is it?" she asks, voice a tremulous whisper.

Jon blinks up at her, jaw clenching tight. "My father's called us back to King's Landing," he tells her, brows sharpening down, "Immediately."

Sansa rests a hand along his arm, a flash of concern fleeting across her features as she steps into him. "What's happened?" she breathes lowly, throat flexing with her swallow.

Jon's shoulders slump, a familiar grief overtaking him then. The scroll crumples easily beneath his bunching fist, eyes wetting before he can recognize the change. "Daenerys, she's – " It's a croak that leaves him, his head shaking in barely-contained anguish. "She's lost the babe."

Sansa's face falls, a quiet 'oh' slipping past her lips.

Jon looks up into the red shade of the weirwood, angry and desolate and – _angry._

How much more must the gods take?

He stares long into the canopy, eyes narrowed, breath heaving from him. Only silence greets him.

He should have known, after all, not to expect an answer.

(Some beasts will never be laid to rest.)

* * *

Motherhood is an abstract concept to Sansa.

She sees its affects, of course, its presence in her life, its weight, its ever-bearing imprint. She sees it in the way her mother reaches for her hand when she joins her for prayers in the sept, the bright lip of dawn not yet peeking over Winterfell. Catelyn does not argue for her to linger longer, does not waste breath telling her how dearly she will be missed. She only pats their intertwined hands, eyes fixed to the motion, a gentle smile breaking across her lips.

They're to leave that morning, after breaking their fast with the rest of the Starks. Jon went to her father shortly after the king's raven first came the day before, explaining the need for haste in their return, without ever mentioning the true reason, and their dinner following the announcement was met with grumblings and objections and some quiet, contemplative musings.

Keep it in the family, she reminds herself.

Daenerys' loss is not hers to share, after all, and Sansa will respect that. She's of two families now. She must consider both with every decision she makes.

Her mother's unquestioning gaze on hers tells her that she understands.

And so, Sansa and Jon find themselves atop the steps leading from the main hall to the courtyard, trading their farewells, a rush of teary goodbyes bombarding her on all sides, until she is overcome. Until she is brittle with longing.

It is too sudden. Too abrupt. She hasn't even had a proper conversation with Margaery since the wedding night, hasn't finished the handkerchief she meant to give Robb as a parting gift, hasn't taken Arya up on her spontaneous invitation to teach her a trick or two in the training yard. She hasn't let Rickon steal a single lemon cake off her plate since her return, or shared nearly enough stories about King's Landing with Jeyne, or just sat with her father in the godswood – not once.

Sansa grips her hands tightly before her, a worried thumb pressing into her opposite palm, gaze fixed to the gate at the far end of the courtyard. She sighs heavily, mouth thinning into a tight frown.

"Bran will follow shortly," her father says at her side, a hand at her elbow, drawing her attention back with the somberness of his voice.

Sansa looks up into his face, a silent nod her only answer. He stares down at her in continued quiet for a moment longer, eyes perusing her face, perhaps attempting to trace the features for remembrance, and Sansa is struck dumb with the reminder that there is no promise of a return to Winterfell, nor the promise that any other Stark may venture south again.

She'd known this when she left the first time. And maybe she shouldn't have come back. It is too cruel a thing, to leave again. Worse now, with Jon at her side.

Ned squeezes her elbow gently, affectionately, nodding his farewell as he clears his throat, a sound much like a hooked fish lodging there, trapped. She wants to reach for him, but he is already gone. Too soon, she is being bundled up in someone else's arms, and she finds it's Rickon's face pushing into her neck. Her laugh is teary, her smile pressed to the crown of his head, and then it's Robb's strong arms wrapped around her, his sigh at her ear, and a tender, whispered goodbye that nearly brings her to her knees, her heart rending inside her, her throat tight with unspokens, and she must pull away quickly, must disentangle herself from him if she ever means to breathe again.

Margaery is next, wrapping her in a willowy embrace, an affectionate kiss at her cheek, a whispered promise passed between them to write, and to write often, to never let the distance drown out their affections, to be sisters, always, and this is where Sansa tucks the battered pieces of her heart away, because then it's _Arya_ \- standing straight-backed and immovable at the edge of their circle.

She blinks up at her little sister, Arya standing tall atop the steps above her, her breath hitching in her chest, a shudder rocking through her, and Jon's hand is at her waist suddenly, bracing against her, his presence warm and steady and unwavering beside her. She presses into his side easily, an unspoken comfort, her hand curling along his sleeve in anchor. "Arya," she breathes, tongue heavy, lips dry.

But her sister is looking at Jon, eyes the kind of grey that always seemed impossibly dark, smoke-tinged, challenging.

"You're pack now," she says, gaze trained on Jon, but it sounds more like a demand than a welcome, and Sansa furrows her brows at the words.

Beside her, Jon's throat flexes with his swallow, words lodged there.

"Remember that," Arya says, hands clenched into fists at her sides.

Jon opens his mouth to respond but he never gets the chance, because Sansa is striding up the few steps then, arms outreaching, dragging Arya into her breast, smothering her whimper of affection in the tangle of her sister's dark hair.

The words batter against her teeth, urgent for air, but she isn't sure of them, cannot cut them into clean enough clarity, and so they lay slaughtered upon her tongue, exhaled silently at her sister's temple, and when she finally feels the brace of Arya's palms along her back, holding her with exactly the same fervency, she finds there was never a need for words in the first place.

It isn't until they're several miles down the King's Road, Winterfell but a grey shadow at their backs, that she truly begins to cry. Jon is at her side instantly, their horses aligned, his gaze solemn upon her, and she holds a hand out instinctively, wordlessly, reaching for him like a tether, exhaling sharply when his gloved palm curls around hers without further word.

The snow falls barely-there and transient around them. Winter trails at their heels, the sun-lit promise of King's Landing stretching far into the horizon. Sansa wants the cold, suddenly - wants it keenly and hopelessly and with a detached sort of nostalgia, Jon's heated palm in her own lighting a mark of remembrance in her.

_Your home will always be here now_.

Sansa looks south, catches the faint trail of light over the hills, the flickering of snow blanking out into a haze, until it is barely a mist upon the land, until it is barely a memory.

Thus they make their way back south.

It is far shorter a trip than she'd imagined it the first time. The days blur together, the weeks unmarked, and Sansa learns to tell time by the nightly embraces in Jon's arms, the mornings she wakes to his face pressed to her collarbone, his arm flung around her waist, his breath pooling hot along the hollow of her throat.

They take to holding each other in their sleep.

Sometimes she is the first to reach out, a tentative hand braced at his chest, her leg pressing between his. Sometimes it is his hand at the small of her back, tracing circles into her flesh, his forehead braced against hers.

They take their grievances to bed in quiet agreement, smother their longing in each other's embrace, swallow their fears behind desire-laden tongues. Sometimes they simply lay staring at each other, breathing soundless words into the air between them, hoping some lucidity of thought might be enough to crack this hesitant stretch of silence that has settled between them, this uncrossable chasm that has sprung up overnight.

They each stay waiting for the break, knowing that it is their return to King's Landing that will shatter the fragile ease between them. Until then, they fall asleep in each other's arms. Until then, they take each night for their own.

Motherhood, Sansa imagines again, the thought murky and yet incessant at the back of her mind.

A shadow always lingering.

She thinks of Daenerys, the salt-haired wife of the crown prince. She thinks of her clear-cut speech, always without apology. She thinks of her sharp-hewn gaze, her detached elegance, her fire-licked grace. A lonely flame. A struggling ember.

Sansa squeezes her eyes shut, a hand at her stomach on instinct.

She thinks of the spitting flare such bitterness must create.

To lose – again and again. Without reprieve.

It is not the sort of grief Sansa is familiar with, but a part of her aches all the same.

Motherhood has always been a gift in her eyes. Never a burden. Never a gamble.

But then, many things are not like she imagined.

Sansa looks to Jon, striding alongside him, the day stretching cloudless and long ahead of them. King's Landing is far ahead, and Winterfell is far behind. Somewhere in the middle, Sansa thinks she finds herself.

(The imprint of his gloved hand in hers lingers long upon her skin.)

Sometime in the last week of their travelling, the sickness begins, but Sansa does not share her suspicions just yet. When they finally make it to King's Landing, Sansa resolves to meet with the maester for confirmation, but first, her heart turns her toward Daenerys.

Their welcome home isn't made of fanfare, but rather a solemn greeting atop the steps of the keep, the king weary and eager to embrace Jon, Rhaenys standing stone-faced at his side. Aegon and Daenerys are unsurprisingly absent.

"It's good to have you back, my son," Rhaegar tells him, a hand at his cheek, and then anchoring at his shoulder with a heavy sigh. "We need you here." It's an imploring gaze he sets upon him.

Jon nods, but his face is impassive, a steady stare his only acknowledgement, and something flickers in Rhaegar's eyes, something like wariness, his hand sliding from Jon's shoulder.

"I understand, Father," he says in a tight voice, reaching for Sansa's hand to tuck it back inside the crook of his elbow as he turns from him, heading into the keep.

"Welcome home, brother," his sister says, an edge to her voice like the snap of a dragon's tail.

Jon doesn't even pause his gait, a cursory nod sent her way with an exhausted "Rhaenys" exhaled in greeting.

Rhaenys blinks at him, mouth parting in incredulity, and even Sansa is taken aback by the brusqueness in his voice, her eyes flicking between the two.

"Jon, you will greet your sister properly," Rhaegar commands, eyes narrowed in confusion at him.

Jon halts at his father's words, shoulders bunching. Sansa can see the tight clench of his jaw from where she stands beside him.

Pulling her hand from Jon's arm, Sansa turns fully to face the king and princess, a polite curtsey offered their way. "Apologies, Your Grace. The journey has been long and the road rough. Exhaustion has dulled his manners," she attempts in jest, hand curling at her husband's sleeve. "My lord?" she asks, a false smile spreading easily across her face.

Jon wipes a hand down his mouth, turning with a bowed head to face his sister. "She's right. It's been..." He swallows, manages a conciliatory smile. "Forgive me, sister. I thank you for your attentions." His eyes flick up to meet his father's. "Where is Aegon? I should find him as soon as we're settled."

Rhaegar eases somewhat at Jon's concern, face releasing some of its sharp tension, the once angular lines of his features suddenly worn in his older age, and Sansa wonders if this is what kingship does –

Makes you wizened to the world, makes you haggard too soon.

Or maybe it's the madness peeking through.

Sansa shudders at the implication, throat parched, following Jon out through the hall wordlessly once Rhaegar answers him.

"I must speak with my brother," Jon says on a sigh after they've passed all the retainers, leaving them alone as they make their way through the sun-lit corridors toward the wing housing their chambers.

Sansa nods knowingly.

Jon stops, turning to her. "I don't want to wait. I need to see him."

Sansa takes his hand in hers. "I know," she says, smiling encouragingly. "I'll tend to the servants, get our things sorted. You should go to your brother."

Jon curls his hand in hers, looks down at the motion. "My lady..."

"When I'm done, I'll find Daenerys. I think she could use some company about now."

Jon chuckles ruefully. "If she would deign to admit to it."

Sansa laughs – short and bright. "I can be as stubborn as Arya, I'll have you know."

"I believe it."

Sansa rubs her thumb over his knuckles, gazing at him warmly, a nagging sorrow turning her lips into a slight frown.

Jon steps into her, concern lining his features, his free hand going to her cheek, cradling her jaw. "What is it?"

Sansa swallows tightly, chest heaving in one long, slow exhale. "I want...I want to help her, but I – I don't know if I know how. I don't know if all I'll be is an inconvenience." She looks down at their joined hands, voice clogging in her throat. "I mean, how can I say I understand? How can I say it's going to be okay? It's so...so terribly unfair. And I may never know – gods, but I hope I never know such grief," she says, head shaking. "But how can I tell her I grieve _with_ her? How can my condolences be anything more than paltry, empty sentiment to her?"

Jon watches her in quiet, doesn't say anything when she wipes at her eyes, heaving a watery sigh, doesn't try to lift her head. He merely runs his thumb along her jaw in smooth, steady strokes, merely leans forward, bracing his lips to her forehead, pressing a lingering, gentle kiss to the skin there. He doesn't withdraw when he hears the sharp inhale she sucks between her teeth, her body going rigid beneath his touch. Instead, he keeps his lips braced to her skin, keeps his eyes slipped closed, keeps her hand wound in his.

She shakes beneath him, a hand curling in the leather of his tunic, holding him to her. When he finally pulls away, it's to rest his mouth at her temple, a breathy sigh leaving him. "She'll know. Believe me, she'll know," he whispers at her temple.

She can feel the smile he wears into her skin, her own blossoming forth, hidden at his shoulder.

She takes a moment, takes a breath, feels the courage fill her at his presence. She pulls away, just slightly, just enough to meet his eyes, her hand still at his chest, with his still cradling her jaw.

"I'll find you in our rooms?" she asks. "After?"

Jon's smile wilts at the edges, his hand tightening at her jaw.

She peers up at him, brows furrowing in concern.

"Aye, after," he agrees, throat flexing with the words, a grimace lighting his features. "Sansa, I have to tell you something then. I have to..." He stops, heaves a sigh, flicks his gaze down to their still intertwined hands. "We need to talk."

Something sinks inside her, a trembling fear, a stone in her gut. All the waiting, all the brushing aside, all the willful smokescreens - she thinks they may finally be tumbling down.

She clings tighter to his tunic, grips him fiercely.

(She hopes she's ready.)

Even still, she nods. She attempts a smile. She uncurls her grip along his tunic and smooths her hand along his chest. "I promised to listen, didn't I?" she gets out on a tremulous breath.

Jon stares intently at her, chest heaving, his jaw clenched tight. "Alright, then," he says.

She nods, lips pursed together. "Alright," she answers.

The edge of his lip quirks up, another graze of his thumb along her jaw, and then he's bracing his forehead to hers, eyes sliding closed.

They stand there for an immeasurable amount of time, just breathing. Neither knows who pulls away first, who disentangles from who, who's languid sigh stains the air when they finally pull from one another. They share a comforting smile, a last lingering look, and then they part, both of them turning down opposite corridors.

Sansa takes the heat of him with her when she goes.

It doesn't take long to direct the return of their traveling possessions, and so Sansa makes her way to Daenerys' chambers while the sun is still high, her hands wringing themselves in their grip before her. When she knocks, the command of 'Come in' is steady and unfaltering. She swings the door open to find Daenerys sitting at her desk penning a letter, her quill stilled over the parchment as she glances up.

The princess is a wisp of a woman, a frail, willowy thing garbed in white silk and cumbersome jewels. She looks swallowed up in her attire, her violet eyes the only discernable mark Sansa recognizes of her. They narrow in recognition as Daenerys motions her to enter the room.

Sansa closes the door behind her quietly. "My lady," she greets, her voice lodged in her throat.

Daenerys straightens in her seat, her quill still held above her half-finished scroll, a dark blot of ink pooling beneath the tip.

She will have to pen a new one, Sansa thinks, suddenly overcome with an unexplainable anguish.

(It only takes a small stain to set it to ruin, after all.)

"You've returned," Daenerys says in an unsurprised voice, finally setting her quill down. She goes to shuffle her letter aside, pausing when she catches sight of the blot of ink, a harsh frown marring her features. She clears her throat, dismisses it. "Apologies for not greeting you earlier, Lady Sansa. I've been..."

"No, no, of course," Sansa says, stepping toward her. Her hands stay bunched before her.

Daenerys stares at her a moment, a finely trimmed nail tapping thoughtfully along the edge of her desk. A shadow overtakes her face. "You've come to share your condolences," she says thinly, a brow raised in expectance. It is more a statement than a question, said almost in what sounds like boredom.

Sansa's brows furrow, her mouth tipping open with no sound.

Daenerys sighs, standing then, brushing her skirts out, and she's so _thin_ , Sansa realizes, so agonizingly small. She strides across the room toward the cushioned settee lining the opposite wall. "Come then," she says, settling easily along one side. She pats the space beside her. "Condole."

Sansa hesitates at the door, her mouth thinning into an uncomfortable frown. "I don't wish to intrude."

"Ah, but you're already here, aren't you?"

Sansa's frown deepens, her steps stilted as she makes her way to the princess.

"You must be tired from your journey. Sit," she commands, and it is impossible not to follow her instruction.

Sansa settles beside her, a worried furrow to her brow.

Daenerys straightens in her seat, shoulders pulled taut. Her hands settle in a delicate fold along her lap, just at the edge of her stomach.

Sansa cannot take her eyes from the image.

"It was nearly painless, this one, you know. Not like the last two times."

Sansa's gaze snaps back up to Daenerys only to find her already watching her, a blank expression donning her face, a single, finely-sculpted brow arched her way.

Sansa shakes her head. "I'm so...so sorry, Daenerys. I can't imagine it would be..." She stops, shakes her head, tries again. "I can't imagine it."

Daenerys sighs, gaze flitting to the opposite wall. "It would be a lie to say I hadn't expected it, in some remote part of me."

"Even still, it can't have been easy."

"'Easy' is never an option when you are to be a queen," she says softly, eyes focused on something...something Sansa cannot discern.

She looks back to the other woman's folded hands, aches to reach for them.

(She never does, and perhaps this is the start of it all, or maybe just the bloom of a sundering between them – sharp-hewn and damning.)

Daenerys releases a delicate scoff, a curl to her lip. "And Aegon certainly isn't helping with that."

Sansa turns more fully to her. "Is he not being attentive?"

"Oh, he's attentive. Too attentive. Always blubbering on about the lost babe, too caught up in what is gone to focus on what is _here_."

The abruptness of the words, the derision behind them, startles Sansa, her head rearing back, the pain in her chest flaring out, catching flame. "My lady, you both lost a child. You must be – "

"Must be sick with sorrow?" she mocks, lips smacking with the words, narrowed gaze shifted back to Sansa's. "Must be inconsolable? Undone?" There's a heat to the words, a stark, vibrant pain lancing through her voice, a curl of resentment.

(To lose – again and again. Without reprieve.)

Perhaps this is what practiced grief makes of the hardened heart.

It tears at Sansa, her nails digging half-moons into her palms as she sits staring at Daenerys.

Her violet gaze flickers in the afternoon light streaming through the windows, jaw clenched tight, and if Sansa looks hard enough, she will see the sheen of salt along her eyes, the quiver to her brow, the tremble through her cheek when she bites her tongue behind gritted teeth.

A struggling ember, yes.

And all the will of fire, still – branding and unquenchable.

"You have not lived here long," Daenerys says on a heavy exhale, as though it is any sort of explanation.

Sansa feels the tears pricking the corners of her eyes. "Perhaps not, my lady," she struggles to get out, voice hoarse with her sorrow. "But I know that the mourning of something does not require the longevity of it."

Daenerys blinks at her, mouth a thin line.

Sansa's hand goes to her own stomach on instinct, hardly noticing the move, a tightness in her throat, like there is a string there, pulled taut around her voice, anchored down into the depths of her.

Daenerys' eyes flicker sharply down to her hand.

Sansa retracks her touch instantly, curling her hand back along her other palm in her lap, her eyes going wide, her throat parched suddenly, and she catches the moment it all fits into place for Daenerys, her eyes roving her form in keen inspection.

"You're with child," she whispers darkly, barely a breath staining her lips.

Sansa opens her mouth, her chest rising quickly with her shallow breaths. No sound comes forth.

Daenerys' eyes narrow on her as she leans forward the slightest touch. "You're with child, aren't you?" she says again, this time louder, surer - this time with a dangerous thrum to the words. Her jaw snaps shut on them.

Sansa shakes her head, voice faltering. "I don't...I don't know..."

Daenerys leans back, gaze perusing her. "Your breasts are fuller., your dress more fitted at the waist. And you're pale - the sickness, no doubt. Tell me, when was the last time you bled?"

It's sour on her tongue, the rebuke, the denial. Maybe because this is not who she wants to be having this conversation with. Maybe because it isn't something she ever wanted to voice outside the intimacy of Jon's embrace. Maybe because this is _hers –_ this tentative, uncertain secret. This promise of a life she hadn't thought to so desperately want until it was here and present and _here_ \- right here beneath her palm, just on the flipside – until it was something born of love.

And it is.

Sansa blinks at the sudden realization, the breath stalling in her throat.

It well and truly is – born of love.

Her eyes wet, her teeth clenching, a fierceness overtaking her. Her hand drifts back to her stomach with surety now, curling tight in the silk of her dress, anchoring there like a promise.

_Hers_.

As much as it is his.

Sansa wants to laugh, suddenly - wants to throw her head back and laugh and laugh and _laugh_. Because how could she have ever missed it? How could it have ever slipped by her so quietly and unobtrusively? How could she be anything else –

But in love with him?

And she wants it, she finds – this babe (if that is what it is, though something inside her tells her there is no doubt).

And she wants _him_. Jon. Her husband. She wants him so desperately it nearly terrifies her.

She wants a family. She wants a home.

She wants this life – with him.

She wants it all.

(And she will take it all – because wolves have never been soft-mouthed things.)

"My lady," Sansa begins, swallowing tightly, her chin raised, "Nothing is certain yet. I've yet to see Maester Gregor."

Daenerys clucks her tongue. "He will tell you as I've told you. Believe me, I am no stranger to these sorts of things."

Sansa keeps her gaze muted on the princess.

Daenerys shifts in her seat, hands resettling in her lap. A sigh breaks from between her pursed lips. "It is no matter." She regains some measure of her regality, eyes flitting to her desk, gaze catching along her ruined missive. "You see, Lady Sansa, I was a Targaryen before I was ever a wife, before I was ever a princess or a mother. I will always be a Targaryen, a dragon. But you will never understand this." She turns her brilliant gaze on Sansa once more, a dark curl to her lips, a smile that is half-shadow and half-flare. The salt-sheen is gone from her eyes.

Sansa sucks a sharp breath between her teeth.

Daenerys stands gracefully, silk skirts fluttering in her wake, and she is not so swallowed up anymore so much as she is battering against her constraints, the heavy silver necklace at her throat suddenly reminiscent of a chain, the delicate white material of her dress more a shroud than anything, and when she drops her ember-hewn gaze back down to Sansa, she swears she hears a dragon's screech echoing in the back of her mind. "I have named them each, in my heart," she begins, strands of bone-white hair slipping past her shoulder when she twists to look down upon Sansa, gaze unrelenting, "I have buried them each, set them each to the earth – an embrace I could never grant them myself." She stops, throat flexing with her control, lips a trembling, thin line before she continues. "But in the end, they will always be sacrifices upon the altar of fire and blood. They will always be the stepping stones to my glory. I shall never forget them – for dragons are infinite." Her smile turns sharp-toothed, even as it trembles with barely-restrained anguish, and she turns away fully then, already making her way back to her desk. "Wolves are but a temporary blight beneath the shadow of our wings," she finishes on a delicate exhale.

Sansa feels a stranger in her own skin suddenly, a prickling awareness settling at the edges of her fingertips, a thrum of danger lighting her bones, and she stands swiftly, light-headed at the motion, all at once angry and sorry and incomprehensibly desolate. It's a jumbled mess in her chest - all teeth and howl. She spreads her hands smoothly down her skirts, tries to steady herself, reclaim some semblance of control.

It comes to her easily enough.

Motherhood will not make of her what it has made of Daenerys Targaryen.

This she promises herself.

Daenerys slips back into the chair at her desk, hand already reaching for her quill, a fresh stream of parchment rolled out beneath her fine-boned fingers. "I thank you for your attentions, Lady Sansa," she says in dismissal, a scarce glance up at her, "But they are not needed. Good day to you."

Sansa curtseys politely, mouth thinned into a tight line, her chin raised high as she makes her way to the door. She feels Daenerys' lingering gaze along her back as the door slips shut behind her, but she hasn't the mind for that.

She has only the mind for him.

Her hand finds its way back to her stomach.

She has only the mind for _this_.

Sansa stands outside Daenerys' door for only a moment longer, hesitation but a brief hook in her heart, before she is striding through the halls. She doesn't want to hear it from the maester without him at her side, doesn't want to hear the words without his hand in hers.

This is hers, yes, but it is his, as well.

It is _theirs_.

And she wants it. All of it.

She wants every brutal, miniscule, breathless part of it.

A life with Jon.

(Never a soft-mouthed thing.)

* * *

Jon braces his hands atop the desk in his solar, breathing deep.

Aegon is as distant and broken as he'd been the last time Dany miscarried, though Jon cannot say that he expected any different. In the throne room, Aegon had stood before their father with a downcast gaze, dark circles beneath his eyes, shoulders slumping slightly, and Jon had been taken aback by the sight, so much of his brother's regality lost, his skin as pale as a winter's moon.

Jon closes his eyes, pinches the bridge of his nose. When he hears the door creak open behind him, he feels some of the tension already seeping from his body, his grateful sigh twisting his mouth into a warm smile as he turns. "Sansa - "

But it's Rhaenys closing the door slowly behind her, fingers slipping from the handle like a whisper. "Jon," she greets, voice flat.

Jon rears back in surprise, but he collects himself quickly, leaning back along the desk. "What are you doing here?" He doesn't mean for the edge in his voice, but it's there all the same. Perhaps it will always be there now, where his sister is concerned.

An incredulous smile tugs at her lips as she stalks forward, silk skirts fluttering around her legs. "Expecting your wife, I see. So sorry to disappoint," she sneers.

He pinches the bridge of his nose again, a gruff sigh leaving him. "Rhaenys, what are you _doing_ here?" he repeats, blinking up at her, his hand falling from his face.

She stops several feet from him, her scowl falling away. She opens her mouth, closes it, flits her gaze to the far wall for a moment as she regains herself, before her eyes are back on his when she finally speaks. "Did you not miss me?" she asks on a tremble.

Jon closes his eyes, grinds his teeth.

"I missed _you_ ," she says, voice drastically more tender than the last time they'd spoken, and this is not lost on Jon.

It's too heavy, this weight. Jon's shoulders slump with it. And he can't do this again. He _won't_. He blinks his eyes open to watch her. "Don't do this," he demands. "Don't play this game."

He'd long ago abandoned pleading with her, anyway.

Her face screws up, clearly hurt, a tentative step taken toward him.

He stays leaning on the desk, fingers curling tight around the edge, a dark look to him, a warning.

"It's the truth," she presses, "Even if you don't believe me."

"How can I ever believe anything from you again?" he shoots back.

Rhaenys swallows her words, chest rising with her heavy breath. She clenches her jaw, gaze snapping to the side table, hand reaching for the vase of flowers atop it when she steps to the edge. "You think I lied to you?"

"I think you used me, and you knew it," he gets out on a strangle.

It should be telling, Jon thinks, that her hand does not flinch at the words, that she keeps a steady, delicate touch along the ends of the flowers' petals. He wants to shake her suddenly. To have her rocking beneath the sting of his words. To hold even the smallest injustice over her.

But she has been hurt enough in this world, and he will not add to that, no matter the resentment that brews hot in his chest. It must stop here, after all. It must stop with him.

Or else he will only ever be the man she has made him, and he cannot accept that.

Perhaps this is how he reconciles what was and what is – what he used to be and what he wants to be, what the world has made him into and what he makes of himself.

It stops here.

It _starts_ here.

"I would have loved you the way a brother should, if you had let me. But that is not what you wanted," he gets out on a heavy breath, lungs quaking with the effort.

She stills her touch along the flowers' edge, head cocking when her voice dips low, practically seething. "How can you know what I wanted?"

And there it is, that painful vulnerability, that tremble of anger, that wounded snap. The dregs of guilt still linger in the pit of his stomach, but he recognizes the sensation now, knows how to smother it.

He will not be the blade she takes to the world.

Not any longer.

Jon pushes from the desk, standing straight. "I know you wanted control. I know you wanted something to assuage the helplessness. And I know you understood what _I_ wanted enough to twist it to your needs."

Rhaenys drops her hand, staring silently at him, a flash of something not unlike fire passing through her dark eyes, a shadow like dragon's wings overtaking her face. "You say it like we didn't want exactly the same things."

"We didn't," he says succinctly, no hesitation, and it's a quiet sorrow that fills him at the words now, the anger slowly ebbing.

Has she not understood that? All this time? After everything?

Her face flickers, hesitating, her hands coming up to wring themselves before her, an anxious gesture she has not done in years, and Jon sighs at the sight, a hand wiping down his face.

"So, what is it you want?" she asks him on a shaky breath, voice cracking.

Jon stares at her, hands bunching into fists at his side, his blunted nails digging half-moons into his palms before he's uncurling them, heaving a sigh with it. "I want to stop hiding," he says with finality, eyes meaningful on hers.

Rhaenys narrows her gaze, considering him, before her eyes go wide, her feet taking her toward him of their own accord. "Jon, what are you – "

"I have to tell her," he says, jaw snapping shut with the words.

Rhaenys stops just before him, hands raised as though to grasp him, but closing around nothing, falling uselessly to her sides. She sucks in a sharp breath. "You wouldn't." It's as much a plea as it is a challenge. Jon can hear it even now – the quake in her voice, the fear.

And he hates that this is what they've been reduced to.

"I thought you should know," he manages, throat tight with his swallow. He gets the words to air, regardless. "It was wrong of me to share your story, you're right. And you shouldn't forgive me for that. But this," and here his hand braces to his chest, here he sucks a breath between his teeth like a brand, "This sin is mine to bear as much as yours. And she does not deserve that shame." His teeth clench, his eyes watering. "She does not deserve a dishonest love."

Rhaenys pulls her shoulders back, her lip trembling, but her eyes are dark - always dark. Coal-hot. Flickering like collapsing embers. "You will lose her," she bites out, the words shaking. She blinks back sudden tears, mouth sharpening into a frown. "Tell her, and you will lose her." It's a warning, or perhaps a plea.

Jon cannot tell anymore with her.

"Then I lose her," he chokes out instantly, shoulders slumping with it, face crumbling. There's no hesitation to the words, only resignation, only regret. And even still, "But I have to tell her."

Rhaenys stays eerily quiet, brows drawn down, chest rising slow and steady.

Jon remembers, suddenly, how she looked as a young girl - cheeks round, eyes clear – and how she had taken his smaller hand in hers, tugging him after her through the gardens, and how she had clapped enthusiastically at his first sparring session, always lingering at the sidelines, always there.

He remembers how she had cried when Lady Elia died, how Aegon took her hand in his and held it tight at his side, staring stiffly out over the funeral procession, how from his place behind them, Jon could only see the curved lines of their backs, like screeches rending the air, how she had turned into Aegon's shoulder and their shadows stretched like winged beasts across the sun-beat stones.

He remembers many things of the girl she once was, and he mourns the loss keenly, even still.

But now, he mourns the boy he once was as well. And maybe he's never had such a chance before because he hadn't the mind to _miss_ that boy, to need him. But he does now – he misses him terribly.

And yet, should he not lay that burden down to rest, he knows he will miss even more the man that he _could_ be.

Jon sighs heavily, a resignation filling him. "Rhaenys," he begins, resisting the urge to hold her arms, to comfort her, even now. "You must know I – "

"Father speaks of Aegon taking a second wife," she says suddenly, voice hollow.

Jon stills, eyes blinking furiously at her, so thrown by the comment. "I don't...I don't understand how that – "

"Me," she bites out, throat flexing beneath her tight swallow, shoulders pulling taut. Even now her eyes are coal-hot, even as they line with tears.

A rumble branches through his chest, his head shaking fervently. "No, he wouldn't. He _knows_ the court would not have it, not anymore. He risks open rebellion with this."

Rhaenys scoffs, her throat flexing with her control when her gaze dips to the floor. "He doesn't care. He's _never_ cared. It's always been about his precious 'three-headed dragon'. It's always been about power." She digs the heel of her palm into one eye, sucking an unsteady breath between her teeth, glancing back up at him when she drops her hand, her eyes still wet. "Turns out Daenerys was his Visenya all along," she chuckles ruefully.

Jon steps toward her, brows furrowed in keen anguish. His knuckles are white in their grip. "Rhaenys..."

"He's not the brother I want," she says with a clipped voice, a surety to her words that rocks him.

Jon stiffens, gaze darkening on hers in reflexive anger. He grinds his jaw, teeth clenching, before turning away, stalking back toward the desk. "Rhaenys, stop," he seethes out, a warning.

Jon is reminded, abruptly and painfully, how easily she wields guilt like a whip, how easily she twists his need to fix, to protect, into something ugly, something she can mold to her needs.

She stalks after him. "If I'm to be a second wife, then let it be yours."

"Rhaenys, _stop_ ," he snarls out, whipping back to face her, a thunderous wrath blanketing his features.

She stumbles to a halt just before him, face faltering beneath a cautious fear, eyes blinking furiously beneath their wet sheen.

"You can't keep doing this, don't you understand?" he bellows. "We are not what you think we are. _I_ am not what you think I am."

"You are my brother," she says on a choke – shaking, spent.

"Aye, then maybe you should have treated me like one," he spits out, the venom ripe in his veins. He shuts his eyes, breathes deep, opens them again. She is still standing there before him, still hesitant and simmering and spitting with righteous bitterness. He takes a breath, tries to rein in his anger. "I'll speak to Father. I won't let him do this, I promise, but you have to understand – " He swallows thickly, his throat flexing with his control. "You have to understand that I will never take you to wife."

She doesn't answer, doesn't do anything but stare at him, something shuttering over her face, brow quivering, lips thinned into a tight line.

Jon keeps his dark gaze on hers, face sharpening into a dangerous visage. He makes sure she's looking him dead in the eye when he tells her, with a voice like winter, "I have a wife. And she's the only one I ever intend to have – the only one I want."

"Because you love her," Rhaenys says on a dark whisper, the air splitting between them, a stillness overtaking them.

Jon clamps his jaw tight, tongue pressed to the roof of his mouth. It seems an ugly thing, to speak it, for the first time, to anyone other than Sansa. To bring its utterance into the world to anyone but _Sansa_.

Rhaenys doesn't deserve the fierceness of such a confession. She doesn't deserve to drag it from him like an excuse, like it is anything other than a saving.

No. She doesn't get to ask this of him.

"I cannot do it, Rhaenys. I _will_ not. It would be an insult to her, to the North. It wouldn't be honorable. But more than that, I don't _want_ it. That should be enough for you," he says on a rough exhale, head shaking.

"You weren't particularly concerned with 'honor' when you were fucking me, Jon," she seethes out between clenched teeth, chest rising steadily with her vexation, her desperation. "Why cling to it now?"

The bile is sour at the back of his throat, his tongue heavy in his mouth. "We've both made mistakes," he gets out hoarsely.

She steps toward him, closing the space between them, eyes flicking between his. "And is that what I am? A mistake?"

"You're my sister," he whispers, the words tinged with regret, with a hurt he hadn't truly known until he'd said them.

She sniffs back an incredulous scoff, jaw quivering, staring at him with accusation in her eyes. "Your sister," she snaps, and Jon wonders, distantly, if it is more wound than comfort. "But not your wife," she finishes. She nods slowly, face screwing into an ugly visage, a righteous rage splashing across her features. "No, that will always be your pretty Northern cunt now, won't it?"

Jon's face darkens instantly, a growl brewing in his chest, and when he steps threateningly toward her, he can't help the flash of satisfaction he feels when she stumbles back a breath, her own anger faltering into wariness, her eyes narrowed on his.

"I've tolerated enough of your temper, _sister_ ," he spits, the bitterness wafting from him, the bite of his words curled sharp behind his teeth, rattling him from the inside out. "You will not speak of her like that again, do you understand me?"

She glares up at him, her tears refusing to fall, her hands bunching in her skirts.

Jon tastes the sickness on his tongue, his lips smacking with it. He shakes his head, a disgusted sneer tugging at his lips. "You dishonor me when you dishonor her," he manages through clenched teeth.

"You dishonor _yourself_ ," she gets out, acid lining her tone, and yet her face crumbles into sorrow, her hand going to her mouth when she turns away, shoulders curling in on herself, stalking toward the door.

Jon braces a hand to the desk beside him, eyes fluttering closed, a rawness in his chest, an aching sort of liberation at her retreating footsteps. He hears the door being yanked open, the click of his sister's low heels clattering to a halt and then –

A wet, shuddering gasp.

Jon's head whips to the sound, eyes blowing wide.

Sansa stands in the doorway, mouth tipped open, eyes fixed to his.

It takes only a look. Only a _look_ to know and then -

All at once, Jon realizes two immutable facts.

The first: that he is irrevocably in love with her.

And the second: that it may be too late to matter.


	12. Wound Upon Wound

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "That wail, that building, festering wail inside her – it finally breaks free, tears from her like a sudden-split wound, bone-rending and raw.
> 
> When does it stop?" -
> 
> Jon and Sansa. Like the curve of the horizon, when the moon break's from beneath its bow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A couple things:
> 
> 1\. 'So sorry for the wait'. 'Real life got a little crazy.' 'I promise I'll be back to timely updates now." Ha ha, yes, it's me again, Boo Boo the Fool.
> 
> 2\. Thank you to everyone who asked after me or this story throughout this particularly long wait between chapters. I appreciate you showing your interest without pressuring me. It made coming back to the story much easier. Y'all some classy bitches, you know that?
> 
> 3\. I need several drinks after this one.

Disclaimer: I own nothing, I make no money.

From Instep to Heel

Chapter Twelve: Wound upon Wound

" _That wail, that building, festering wail inside her – it finally breaks free, tears from her like a sudden-split wound, bone-rending and raw._

_When does it stop?"_ -

Jon and Sansa. Like the curve of the horizon, when the moon break's from beneath its bow.

* * *

If you asked Sansa when it all began, she would have no answer for you.

Perhaps it was that very first time the two of them came upon Robb and her, Rhaenys' arm hooked through Jon's, his easy temper with her, the way his face softened when she spoke. Or perhaps it was at the betrothal feast, the sight of them at the edge of the dancefloor, heads inclined in some intimate conversation. Maybe it was the following afternoon, the luncheon she shared with Margaery and the Targaryen princesses –

_He's not yours_.

Maybe that's when she knew.

Something was terribly wrong with them.

And yet, it sat there, simmering beneath her skin, a bare flicker of thought, hardly worth mentioning.

_Wrong_ , something whispered inside her – easily smothered.

But thinking of it now, standing there in the open threshold, her hands bunched tight in her skirts, her breaths coming short and shallow - she wonders how willfully blind she must have been to miss it all this time.

_Because you love him._

Sansa squeezes her eyes shut at the thought, gripping harshly at her skirts, her lips pressed tight together.

" _You weren't particularly concerned with 'honor' when you were fucking me, Jon."_

She sucks a sharp breath through her teeth, the bile tart at the back of her throat. She opens her eyes, and there they still are – Rhaenys, with her eyes wide, her hand fixed to the door handle, mouth slipping open on a silent gasp, and just behind her – there – with one hand braced to the desk, his gaze fixed to hers, chest rising unsteadily, a faltering step her way, and then a jolting halt – _there._

Her husband.

Her Jon.

Sansa lets out a shuddering 'oh', stumbling with the exhale, gaze flitting down to the floor.

"Sansa..."

His voice sounds distant, as though coming from under water, drowned – smothered.

She shakes her head, the bile rising, eyes blinking furiously while she braces a hand to the doorframe.

" _He's not the brother I want."_

And then it's fury – white-hot and spitting from her. Sansa looks up finally, eyes glinting sharp, mouth set into a fine line. She meets Rhaenys' startled gaze easily.

"Lady Sansa..." she begins, hand slipping from the door handle. Her shoulders pull back.

"Leave us," Sansa grits out, barely blinking, knuckles white in her grip.

Rhaenys opens her mouth as though to speak, stops, seems to think better of it. She stays staring at Sansa for many long moments, breath finally evening out, and Sansa thinks she sees tears in the corners of her eyes, if she looks hard enough. It only makes her rage flare hotter.

Rhaenys turns slightly, gaze thrown over her shoulder toward Jon, a tremble to her voice when she says, "It seems neither of us will be getting what we want." There's bite to the words, of course, but also a weary sort of resignation. Her jaw quivers with their utterance.. She looks back to Sansa.

Sansa only turns her head.

Silence settles between them once more.

And then Rhaenys is slipping quietly past her, silk skirts fluttering in her wake, a shadow just at the edge of Sansa's vision, and then gone.

Jon drops his hand from the desk, turning fully toward her. His chest heaves with his breaths, his face a crumbled ruin, and Sansa must tear her gaze from the sight of him, stepping into their shared room with a ragged exhale, fingers unclenching around her skirts. She turns fully, reaching for the door, sliding it closed with her forehead pressed achingly to the wood. She slides a hand down the door, the other anchored at her stomach. She starts to shake – violently.

Everything comes crashing into her at once – the memory of his embrace in the early morning of the godswood, the warmth of his kiss to her fingertips as they danced in her childhood home, waking to the sight of him, the sound of her name along his lips, his face, his _face_ , that singular and sacred smile, that fixed and unflinching gaze, the breath of him, the nearness, how he invades her senses, sends her spinning, his hand at her back, the roughness of his beard along her fingertips, the feel of his heartbeat beneath her palm, his laughter, his _sobs_ , how his hand fits seamless in hers, and his name, his name, his name –

_Jon_.

"Oh gods," she shudders out, voice catching, fingers curling along her stomach.

(This promise they made, surely growing within her.)

The first sob hits her without notice, but she sucks it back sharply, shakes her head along the door, hand retreating from her stomach.

It's not his to share, not like this, never like this.

A still quiet overtakes her.

She doesn't know how long she stands like this, only that his voice is closer when he calls to her again, finally, his throat still clogged with tears.

"Sansa, please," he says, a desperate exhale, "Will you look at me?"

She squares her jaw, blinks back the wetness as though it had never been. She turns finally, hands pressed to the door behind her.

He seems to break at the sight of her.

"Oh, gods, Sansa, I – " he begins, stalking toward her, hands outstretched.

She lifts a single palm to the air to halt him.

He stills instantly, just a scant few paces from her.

"I think I need to sit down," she croaks out, legs weak suddenly, and she glances to the cushioned armchair on the other side of the desk, moving toward it with a stiff back and trembling hands.

Jon goes to help her. A swift, warning glare from her sends him back to stillness. She settles uneasily into the chair, hands gathering together in her lap. She folds one leg over the other, frowns, uncrosses and re-crosses. The breath is tight in her chest, her limbs thrumming. She pushes from the seat instantly, shaking the tremors from her hands as she stalks away. "No, no," she says to herself. "I don't want to sit down."

Jon nods at her, his head bent low.

She stops in the center of the room, hands twisting before her. She turns her ire-lit gaze his way again.

He meets her gaze and suddenly, the world stops spinning. It deadens into a sickening quiet, barely a breath heard between them. She's rooted to the spot, eyes fixed to his, mouth tipped open, and everything and nothing seems to build uselessly along her tongue, only to fall away – disused and set to rot.

_Because you love him_.

She hadn't thought to ever regret it until now – now when she knows it to be true, beyond doubt.

And maybe that's what hurts the most.

Somewhere in the silence, Sansa finds the breath to speak. "Is this what you meant to tell me?" The words are sour along her tongue.

Jon dips his head, breath rattling from him. "Yes," he croaks out.

Her eyes slip shut, lips parted on a sigh. "Then perhaps it would have been better if you never had."

She doesn't mean it. She _couldn't_. Because she'd asked him for honesty, demanded it of him, even. And yet... and yet it wasn't supposed to be like this.

(So maybe she means it, just a little.)

"You deserved the truth," he gets out.

"Aye, and what a convenient time for you to spill it," she snaps back.

Jon stares at her, hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. "I didn't want this."

She lifts her chin at that, unable to form words.

"I didn't want any of this."

"You didn't want your sister?" she sneers, and it's easy, she finds – easy to sharpen this rank and foul bitterness into cheap venom. It's so terribly easy. Maybe because she knows now what hurts him. And she knows how to use it.

Jon clenches his jaw, eyes bright with unshed tears. "How much did you hear?"

"I heard enough," she bites out.

Jon pinches the bridge of his nose, shakes his head out, takes a tentative step toward her as his hand falls away. He is a harrowing visage, decades of pain settling into the lines of his face, and he's all at once smaller and far more brittle than she's ever seen him before. "That doesn't tell me what you heard."

She keeps her lips shut tight, that rancid, unfamiliar rage simmering still beneath her skin.

He takes another step toward her, closing the distance hesitantly. "If I know how much you heard I could tell you – I could...explain...I could – "

"You could explain?" she asks incredulously. "You could explain how you fucked your own sister? How you covered it up with these terrible tales of your past meant to garner my pity? Meant to throw me off from the true nature of your relationship? Tell me, Jon, _please_ ," she scoffs. "Tell me how you _lied to me_ , how you paraded me around your family like the _idiot_ I am, how you only chose to reveal this...this _baseness_ when I'm back in the clutches of your filthy capital, when I'm subject to your family's whims – _again_ – when I'm away from everyone I love, when I'm the most vulnerable I have _ever_ been, when I'm pr – " She stops suddenly, chest heaving with her cries, the tears hot at her lids now, and she wipes at them furiously, clears her throat, tries to swallow the words back as she shakes her head vehemently. "No, Jon, you _cannot_ explain that," she gets out through gritted teeth.

A heavy breath shudders from him. "I tried to tell you. A thousand times I tried to tell you but – "

"But what? Too ashamed? Well, you should be," she snaps.

A lance of pain flickers across his face.

Her throat tightens at the look, tongue tart with the aftertaste of such words. But they've already made it to air. She cannot take them back.

Jon squares his shoulders, takes a step toward her. "Aye, I'm ashamed," he gets out, voice hoarse. "But not for what you think."

Her eyes narrow on him.

"I'm ashamed it took me so long to stop it. I'm ashamed I wasn't keen enough to see her manipulations for what they were. Not until it was too late."

Her chest heaves, her anger rising. She doesn't want to forgive him, she finds. She doesn't want to feel pity or compassion. And maybe that's selfish of her. But she doesn't want it.

(Perhaps because she'd only wanted him – so ardently, and so impossibly – that to find he'd never been hers from the start -

It hurts far worse than she could have imagined.)

A sharpness hones itself inside her, a vile wrath.

No, she doesn't want to forgive.

"But you're not ashamed it happened," she says lowly.

Jon tightens his jaw, eyes fixed to hers. "It shouldn't have happened."

"But you're not _ashamed_ that it did," she urges, voice shrill. Her eyes water instantly.

Jon shakes his head, a scoff of frustration escaping him. "You say it like I had a choice in the matter. Like I acted on some sick desire or some romantic urge and that _isn't_ what happened at all," he growls. "I did...I did what I thought would help her. What she asked of me."

"And you thought that was what all brothers did for their sisters?" she bites out, incredulous. "You _slept_ with her, Jon."

"I know!" he shouts, jaw clamping shut with the outburst, a hand raked through his hair as he stalks away from her, stalks back, heaves a breath stained with his frustration and helplessness. "I know, Sansa, damnit, I fucking _know_. Don't you think I know what I did? Don't you think I understand?"

"Then how – "

"And I'm _sorry_ , gods, I'm so unbelievably sorry, Sansa. I can't - I can't - " He takes a breath, squeezes his eyes shut, opens them to her once more. "I'm so fucking sorry, Sansa, this isn't - this isn't how I wanted any of this to happen."

"And what _did_ you want, my lord?"

Jon's gaze darkens, his frown harshening. "I only wanted...I only wanted to comfort her, because she's - she's my _family_ , Sansa. After everything – she's family. And I couldn't...I didn't know what else to do."

"Family," she sneers, lips pulled back distastefully. "How very Targaryen of you."

His eyes narrow, his fists clenching. "That isn't fair." It's a rough exhale that leaves him with the words.

Sansa releases a disbelieving scoff, shaking her head. 'Fair? _Fair_? Jon, you don't get to talk about 'fair' when we're - when I'm - " She stops, teeth clenching, resisting the urge to curve her palm over her abdomen.

Gods, but it hurts. It hurts all the way down to her bones, to her gut, to the thrum of air building in her throat like a waiting scream.

She wants to tear it from her - this hurt.

(Or maybe tear the love from herself instead - the root of this unbearable pain, the source, the bedrock to this now shattered trust. Tear him out of the pocket he's made between her ribs.

Because bleeding out must surely hurt less, she figures.)

"You lied to me." Her voice is a tremor of air.

"I never lied," he says vehemently, and the scrunch of his brow, the tremble at the edge of his lip, the wet sheen over his eyes tells her he is back to that day, all those years ago, when they'd pulled Ser Arthur's body from the saddle behind his nearly comatose sister – when he'd been just a boy (just a boy playing at being a man) and he'd seen what promises the world upholds – his world, at least.

(Fire and blood.)

She squashes the flicker of sympathy that threatens to ignite within her, buries it deep and low, keeps her hardened gaze fixed to his when she finds her voice once more. "You did everything you could to garner my trust, my empathy, so you could, what? Tell me this when it was most opportune for you? So you could ease my disgust with more sad stories of your past? How _close_ you two are? How much you need each other?"

"That's not – "

"And how stupid of me, to buy into it. To want to ease your pain. How absolutely and horrifically _stupid_ of me. You just ate it up, didn't you?"

Jon takes another step toward her, closing the distance between them, and he's close enough now that she can see the quiver of his clenched jaw, the sharp, hysteric glint in his eye, the salt-tinge of tears at the corners of his lids. She swallows back the sickness, a sound easing from her throat not unlike a whimper. She resolutely does not step back.

"You're wrong," he gets out lowly, voice wavering.

Her eyes flick between his, searching.

"I never wanted to hurt you with this. I only ever wanted you to know the truth – the _whole_ truth, even the parts of it that made me lesser in your eyes. Because you deserved that kind of truth. You deserved it even if I lost you for it."

Sansa's mouth goes dry, her body shaking. She's rooted to the floor, staring back at him with a knot in her chest that aches and aches and aches to be undone, to be torn asunder, to release. But it lingers there, anchored like a stone, burrowing deeper and pulling tighter, making a home between her ribs where no tenderness can follow.

Jon presses closer, his hands rising hesitantly, hovering at the edge of her jaw, his breath raking from him uneasily. "Gods, Sansa, I never meant to hurt you," he whispers, the hot pant of his breath fanning her cheeks.

She swallows thickly, mouth pursed tight. "But you did, Jon. You did hurt me." The tremble in her own voice scares her – the unevenness, the threat of tears lining its edge.

His fingers slide up her jaw and she stands stock still at the motion, unable to pull his touch from her face, unable to do anything but flicker her tear-filled eyes between his, her chest rising and falling so quickly she's already light-headed from it. "Jon," she whispers, a warning, or a plea – she cannot know.

"But I was hurting, too," he shudders out, crumpling into her, forehead pressed to hers now, and she can feel the violent tremble that racks him, braced against him as she is, her hands hanging uselessly at her sides, nails digging half-moons into her palms from the clench of her fists.

Another sob, though neither of them knows which of them heaves it this time.

"Please, Sansa," he begs, voice ragged, and his mouth is so close, his fingers digging into her jaw, threading into her hair, holding her to him, and she can't help but lean into the touch, to anchor to him just as surely.

She opens her mouth, closes it, lets out a quaking breath at his lips.

(Doesn't want to forgive. And yes – yes, this is easier.)

"Don't," she whispers, hands going to his wrists.

He presses into her, the ghost of his lips at the edge of her mouth. "Sansa, _please_ ," he sobs.

"I can't," she says, pulling from him, head turning, a catch in her voice, and then she's tugged harshly back to him, her anger flaring hotter at the motion, even when his pleads wrench something inside her. "Jon," she warns, gulping back her heated venom.

And then his hands brace along the back of her head, urging her to him, his lips parting, her name a ragged whisper between their mouths and she jerks back at the near kiss, hands pushing at his chest, a desperate cry tearing from her lungs. "Don't you dare!"

He stumbles back from her shove, his cheeks already clearly stained with tears, his hands still held mid-air, as though to reach for her.

She wipes at her mouth, shuddering, a keening sound at the back of her throat, head shaking vehemently. "Don't you dare touch me," she grinds out, tears already hot against her lids. She blinks them back. Fails miserably.

"Sansa."

"I don't even – I don't even know you," she gets out, a sudden sob breaking from her, her whole chest aching with it, and she grips at her heart, fingers bunching at the collar of her dress, a low whine easing from her as she stumbles back, head still shaking, vision still swimming. "I don't even _know_ you and you tell me this, you – you make me lo – " She stops, sucks a breath in, digs the heel of her palm into her eye. "Gods, don't do this to me. You _can't_ do this to me. Not now," she moans, hand dropping from her face, her other still clenched at her chest, and she opens her eyes to the image of him.

To those eyes and that mouth and that face and the very _look_ of him – everything she's come to love, and she – she _hates_ that he's done this to her. That she's _let_ him. And she – she -

"Sansa," he tries again, another begging, another tear-laced plea, his hands reaching for her once more, and _hasn't he learned yet_?

His fingers barely graze the edge of her cheek when she slaps his hand away, whipping her head up, a dangerous cut to her glare, her chest heaving with it. "I said don't touch me!" she shrieks, hand ripping from her chest, balling into a fist instead, stumbling back with the force of her vehemence, and the tears are instant now, without reprieve. She does not try to stop them this time.

Jon withers before her, hands retracting, his mouth opening with no words to follow.

Sansa trembles within her skin, the sound of her own breathing heavy in her ears, her pulse thrumming in her throat, and she stands there. She stands there and stares.

Jon rakes his hands through his hair violently, cursing, crying.

Something of desolation settles between them – slow and inevitable.

She hasn't the strength to fight it.

(Yes, this is easier.)

"Get out," she manages through clenched teeth, her tongue pressed to the backs of them, ready to lash her bitterness, ready to cut another ruthless swath through their relationship.

Jon stares at her, lips pressed into a tight line. He blinks at her, hand wiping down his mouth, a heavy breath raking from him.

The desolation spreads, seeping into the air like ink through water, sinking into their bones until they are rife with it – until it settles even along the dust in every corner of the room, staining them thoroughly.

"Sansa, I..." Jon croaks out, licking his lips with an uneven exhale.

"Get _out_ ," she says again, this time surer, but with the steady thrum of regret lacing her words – the kind of regret you can't ever take back.

Another stretch of silence passes between them, with Jon turning to stare at the far wall, a single, slow breath leaving him, his hand wiping over his harsh frown once more, and then the hardened shift of his gaze back to hers.

Sansa folds her hands before her, trembling even still. She takes a breath. Holds it.

She asks him to leave, and leave he does.

She barely registers the brush of air at her shoulder when he passes her, his gaze averted, his voice lodged tight in his throat, unheard.

Somewhere in the distance, she recognizes the slam of the door behind her. Somewhere in the distance, she recognizes the sound of her own breath releasing.

She falls to her knees, a rending sob breaking from her, splitting the air, her palms braced along the cold stone as she steadies herself.

No, she doesn't want to forgive.

(But she thinks she hates herself for it, even still.)

* * *

"What did you say to Father, when he first told you about you and Daenerys' betrothal?" Jon asks suddenly, his hand stilling over his blade, the oiled cloth bunching beneath his tight knuckles.

Aegon lifts his head from his own blade, gaze flickering over Jon. They're both spent and sweat-lined after their spar, sitting along one of the benches lining the training yard, a purposeful distance between them.

It's been days. Days since Sansa first came upon his and Rhaenys' conversation. Days since she last spoke to him.

The first two nights she hadn't even returned to their shared chambers, and Jon had sat up most the night at his desk by the window, trying to detract his own anxiety at her absence, resisting the urge to go shouting through the halls for her. The look she'd given him just before she'd told him to 'get out' had stopped him though.

He'd prepared for this. He'd told himself over and over the consequences. He'd been ready to lose her.

At least, he'd thought he'd been ready.

Three days without sleep will convince you of anything, though.

She'd finally come back to him the third night, closing the door behind her with a steady clack. He'd stood motionless at the edge of the bed, breath catching in his chest, mouth parting with no words to follow. A faltering step. A stumble. His hands reaching, falling, reaching again.

She'd only stood staring at him with eyes of winter.

In his mind's eye, he saw a bird – frost-bit and wild with defiance, a feathered gem, a beat of wings past a swinging cage door – left empty and dust-filled.

That which he loves he wishes to be free, he reminds himself -

Even from him.

That cage door, swinging wide – there is no closing it now, even if he wanted to.

"Sansa," he'd croaked out, but she'd paid no mind to his withered plea. She'd turned to her vanity, sat down with a steely silence, and proceeded to pull the pins from her hair. Not once had her eyes met his through the mirror.

Not once.

She'd prepared for bed without even a cursory glance his way, and before he could speak her name again, she'd pulled the sheets aside and settled beneath them, her back to him.

Thus, their nightly ritual continued for days.

Thus, he always went to bed – watching the back of her by moonlight, eyes fixed to the line of her spine, as loud as any scream.

Something hardened inside him at the nightly sight, brittle and coarse.

It is a small comfort to take his frustrations out with his blade. His officers are accustomed to the frequent sparring now, but it isn't until his brother comes into the yard, a firm command sending them backing away with bowed heads, his blade turned expectantly toward him, that Jon had truly found a vessel for his rage and helplessness.

They sit now, both settling their own pants, exhaustion bled into their bones, warring out their own fruitless desires inside their beaten hearts.

It seems such a tiring thing – to want.

Jon wishes he was done with wanting.

"What did you say to him?" Jon presses his brother, not knowing himself why it matters so.

Aegon stays staring at him a moment longer, before turning back to the cleaning of his blade. "I didn't say anything."

Jon releases a rueful chuckle. Because of course. Of fucking course.

What is there to say, really?

Aegon sighs, mouth tightening into a thin line. "And at your own betrothal? I imagine you didn't exactly protest."

Jon scoffs then. Perhaps he's still his brother after all. After everything. How very well they know each other, even still. "Bastards don't have that sort of luxury," he bites out, a heavy sigh leaving him.

Aegon looks at him out of the corner of his eye, saying nothing.

Jon half expects a refuting quip, his whole body braced for it, shoulders held taut. It isn't the first time he's expected such. It won't be the last.

But only silence pervades the air between them.

Jon chances a look Aegon's way, only to find his brother (dull, even in the gleaming afternoon sun), with eyes fixed across the courtyard, a vacant sort of stare, an uneven gaze.

Jon licks his lips, hesitant.

A soft, barely-there chuckle eases from Aegon's lips then. "Neither do crown princes," he says finally, hardly even a whisper, more a soft rush of air, as though he hadn't expected it to ever be heard.

And this is where Jon remembers his anger.

"You don't get to do that," he growls out.

Aegon blinks, turning to him, face subdued and impassive. His eyes were a violent sort of violet once, a harrowing gleam. They carry oceans now, steady and drowning. A wide, endless swallow of light.

(Jon begins to wonder at what point _Targaryen_ ends and _Aegon_ begins – at what point _Jon_ ends and _brother_ begins. Or are they very much the same thing? Are they – each of them – merely names, and nothing more?

Are they princes, or are they men?

Can the two ever truly coexist?)

Jon remembers, suddenly, the ragged breath that tore through his brother's lungs when he'd found him upon his return from Winterfell, sitting along a bench in the gardens, staring at the fountain in the center of the yard, rolling a worn and wilted lilac between his thumb and forefinger.

"I prayed for a daughter," Aegon had choked out, the flower's petals crushed beneath the press of his thumb. "For an Elia."

His other hand had come up to shadow his face then, shielding his ruin from his brother, and Jon could not find it in himself to hate him. Not then.

Maybe not ever.

And isn't that the fucking punchline?

_Aegon, Aegon, Aegon._

(At what point the edges of him bleed into _Targaryen_ \- Jon may never know.)

He clears his throat, teeth clenching. "You don't get to do that," he whispers once more, this time with a faltering voice, this time with the threat of tears behind his words.

Aegon sighs, rests his sword along his knees, wipes a hand down his mouth. "What are you trying to say, Jon?" he asks finally, a heavy sigh rattling out at the end of the words, his eyes finally flitting toward his brother's.

They hold each other's stares for many moments, Jon biting his lip to keep the wrath from bubbling forth. It's a pointless effort, though.

"I love my wife," he says finally, burning and unrepentant. It could never stay buried long. It could never not claw for air.

This love is dizzying, after all – shifting worlds in its wake.

It would have drowned him from the inside out.

"I love her, Aegon," he says again, and everything seems to slip into place.

The anger simmers out into barely a recollection.

Aegon stares at him, throat bobbing. A shadow passes over his face, a haunting image of their father – maddeningly handsome.

(Maddeningly.)

But grief paints his face in new shadows now – ones not akin to their father's. A practiced, stilted smirk tugs at Aegon's lips. "I'm sure you do," he gets out, head tilted in a familiar, goading fashion. "I'm sure there are many things to love about Sansa Stark."

It comes to Jon like a stricken summer, something sinking to ruin inside him. It comes to him like a bone snapped clean in two.

He leans back, spine straightening, cloth forgotten in his calloused palm. "You don't even want her," he says on a disbelieving exhale.

Aegon cocks a brow his way, continuing the cleaning of his own blade.

And then Jon laughs. Loud and brittle and jarring. He laughs and laughs and laughs. "Gods, but you don't even truly _want_ her," he gets out, shaking his head, a hand raked through his curls.

He gets it now. He finally fucking gets it.

Jon barks another laugh, stilling Aegon as he stares back at him, brows drawn together in confusion.

"Jon," he says, almost like a command.

He only shakes his head, standing abruptly, shifting the sword off his lap with an urgent hand.

" _Jon_."

Jon looks down upon his brother. He heaves an incredulous scoff, brows bunching tight over his dark eyes. "You only wanted her so long as she was mine," he says on a revelation – a vile flame, like dragon's breath.

Aegon purses his lips, jaw clenched tight. "I don't - "

"Oh, you've always been rather good at reminding me what is and what isn't mine," he says now, the words ripe in his throat, instant, impossible to tether. They curl like smoke to the tip of his tongue, sour and lung-scraping, ready for air.

Aegon stares up at him, violet eyes flashing.

Jon's mouth dips into a harsh frown then, a steadiness overtaking him,

(The stone upon their father's desk, a stolen horse in the night, petals crushed like wishes beneath his brother's thumb.)

"You have everything, Aegon," he says, the breath winded from him, shoulders slumping with it.

Aegon narrows his eyes at him, uncomprehending. His mouth parts as though to speak, but –

"You have everything," Jon says again, silencing him with the surety of his words. A slow shake of his head, a pinched frown, a rueful chuckle. "So why are you so unhappy?"

Aegon's mouth clamps shut, eyes fixed to his.

Like a stricken summer. Like the snap of bones.

(Empires have always fallen in this way.)

Aegon clears his throat, lips parting.

No sound comes forth.

Jon's chest aches – suddenly and without reprieve. The salt-sting of tears bites at his eyes, unbidden.

(It would have drowned him from the inside out.)

"Why are you so unhappy, brother?" he grinds out through gritted teeth, voice lodged in his throat, the tears pricking at his eyes now.

_And why must you make me so as well?_

Jon hasn't the heart to wait for an answer, even if his brother has one. So instead, he simply stalks from the yard, knuckles white where they grip at his sword, his free hand brushing at his eyes, blinking furiously against the afternoon sun, chest heaving – once, twice, slow and steady.

Drowning, he thinks, except – except maybe –

Maybe it only ever _seems_ like drowning – that first breath taken on one's own.

(From the inside out –

As all things must start.)

* * *

Bran returns just shy of a sennight later. Sansa nearly suffocates him with her hug.

"Sansa," he groans out, patting at her arm with urgency. "Sansa, gods, I need to breathe," he gets out between puffs, craning his neck to turn his face so that her copper hair doesn't smother him.

She laughs at his words, loosening her hold minutely, face still buried in his neck. She breathes. Breathes again. Clings and clings and clings to him. Her piece of home. The only piece left to her now.

She takes another soldiering breath in, lets it fill her lungs. If she lingers long enough on it she might still be able to smell the snow on him, the faint scent of burning oak, maybe even the musk of that rich, deep soil that always permeated the crypts.

Bran eases into a contemplative silence in her embrace, his own hand anchored at her back, a steady, patient sigh easing from his lips.

"I missed you," she manages in a trembling voice. She swallows the quake back immediately, pulling from him, hands resting atop his shoulders. He's nearly eye to eye with her now. Her chest aches with the thought of it. This familiar boy in an unfamiliar man's body.

She blinks back the sudden wetness,

Bran sees it anyhow. He narrows his gaze at her softly, eyes perusing her face. "Sansa, what's wrong?"

She manages a stiff smile, a quick shake of her head. She doesn't trust her voice just yet.

"It's not that Targaryen husband of yours, is it?" Theon asks suddenly from beside them, hefting his bag over his shoulder, the arch of his bow catching a glint of afternoon light with the motion. He gives a devilish grin. "I'm still as good a shot as I've always been," he menaces with an arched brow.

A short, rueful laugh breaks from her lips, her hands still held over Bran's shoulders as she glances to Theon. "And still just as treasonous," she shoots back, the hint of a smirk tugging at her own mouth.

Theon barks a laugh.

"Sansa," Bran interrupts, eyes still serious and focused on her.

She heaves a sigh, planting a false and delicate smile across her face. It's a familiar smokescreen, she realizes. She'd donned it her very first day in King's Landing and hasn't stopped needing it since.

She'd just never thought to need it _now_ , here, with family.

"I've missed you," she says again, this time with a hand moving to his cheek, tender and fierce all at once. And it isn't a lie. But it isn't the truth either – at least, not the one he's looking for. "I've missed you so dearly I've been nearly sick with it." The words tumble out easily enough. A distraction, yes, but not a false one.

She aches keenly with her longing – every night.

Every night since she'd stumbled upon her husband's dark secret.

And yes, maybe a lot of her anger is self-directed, tired of being made a fool for a man she shouldn't have loved in the first place, tired of this useless, petty jealousy that makes her ashamed. So yes, maybe a lot of it is pride. Maybe a whole damn lot of it is pride, but also – also...

Sansa presses her tongue to the roof of her mouth, tries to drown out the taste of resentment.

She is just so exhaustibly lonely. So gods-damned lonely.

And _scared_.

This is no Winterfell. The hearths are not warm and the walls are not silent and the people are not hers. Not truly.

She hasn't even Margaery to confide in, now. Certainly no Robb or Arya or Mother. She is alone. She is so utterly alone.

(All except for this babe she carries - this reminder of just how captive Targaryen princesses are. And she is. She well and truly is a Targaryen princess now.)

She'd shown up at Daenerys' door that first night, unable to even stay in the room she shared with Jon, bits of him scattered throughout their shared space like a cruel reminder – the cloak she'd sewn for him across the back of the cushioned chair, the thin leather tie he sometimes used to keep his hair back laying forgotten atop her vanity table, a permanent smudge of ink at the edge of the desk where he always rested his quill hand –

The smell of him lingering on her pillow, taunting her.

No, she couldn't stay there. She'd gathered her skirts in her still simmering fury and stalked through the empty halls until she came to the Maidenvault, knowing this was where Daenerys had secluded herself during her recovery. No Aegon to probe her with tentatively threatening questions. No Rhaenys to sharpen that terrible, possessive greed in her.

No Jon to see her cry.

Daenerys had opened the door with little more than a piqued brow, her night robe fluttering softly about her slight frame.

Sansa was nearly panting, having practically sprinted there. She brought her lip between her teeth, mind racing, eyes stinging – gods, the hurt.

And was it prideful to not want Daenerys to witness that?

But she could think of no other place to go.

"May I stay here for the night?" she'd asked with as steady a voice as she could muster. She dared not wipe at her eyes, dared not bring further attention to the already brimming tears.

But Daenerys had said nothing, only looked her slowly up and down, eyes finally drifting to her face as though coming back into focus. And then she'd pushed the door open wider, stepping aside.

Sansa had fallen asleep beside the Targaryen princess that night, their backs to each other, her fist in her mouth to smother the sobs.

They will not have her tears. She'd promised herself this long ago.

But Daenerys had not pried. She hadn't even shifted atop the bed, hadn't made a single move to indicate she'd heard her, or even if she did, that she'd cared to confront her about it.

Sansa had been grateful beyond words. _Beyond words_ because, in fact, she couldn't even begin to think of words at this point, couldn't put the right sentences together, couldn't rightly tell what the tangle in her heart was trying to tell her.

All she knew was that it hurt. It hurt and hurt and _hurt_ and she hadn't even the words for such hurt.

She hadn't even the breath for it, truly.

That second night was both easier and harder. 'Easier' because she'd stemmed the flood of tears by then, donned her impenetrable mask of courtesy, rose to a bright sun and offered to share breakfast with Daenerys – didn't even spill the tea when her trembling hands went to fill their cups.

Daenerys had caught the tremor regardless, and Sansa could hardly believe she wouldn't, but again, Daenerys remained silent. Thoughtful in her silence, of course, but not inquisitive.

The 'harder' was that she missed him.

And _gods_ , she wanted to hurl something at the thought. Wanted to spit her white-hot rage, wanted to tear into him, to shred him to pieces, much like she'd been but then – but then...

_I was hurting, too_.

Gods, but the way he'd cried. The way he'd _looked_ at her. Like she could split him open with a word. Like she could rend that wound wide and set a stone in it, watch the gaping hole set to rot, watch him drag his insides up around it in a frantic plea for cover.

Watch him wither to the root, like a dead stalk in winter.

And part of her had wanted to.

(The part of her she hasn't a name for. The part of her she thinks this place has tainted for good. The part of her that is _Targaryen_ now.)

She wants to run. To put boots to dirt and simply _run_. To go sprinting into the night. Northward. Always North.

And she would be welcomed, she knows. She would be taken in with open arms, with fierce assurances, with the impenetrable, unyielding promise of 'pack'.

Her and her child, both.

Always a Stark.

(It never truly leaves, Sansa knows this now, Targaryen princess or not.)

But a sudden realization catches the breath in her throat, snagging like a fish on a hook, or maybe like a bird beating against its cage.

To leave now, to run, to put boots to dirt as she so dearly wishes, would only mean another war.

She isn't simple enough to dismiss the importance of such a babe, the only promise of Targaryen continuation. She isn't simple enough not to understand 'capital captive', something she surely _will_ be once word of her condition reaches the king.

And this is where the rage sets in again. This invisible line marring the reach of her freedom. These gilded bars. This cage.

_This cage_.

So pretty and unassuming.

All the same, a wolf left to cage is a wolf left to rot.

(She thinks of Lyanna Stark suddenly – unexpectedly – and she is winded from the realization.)

"I'm alright, Bran, truly," she urges, voice thick in her throat. She clears it, gives a reassuring nod.

Bran cocks his head at her lie, hand going for hers over his cheek, tugging it down, rubbing a fond thumb over the backs of her knuckles. He looks down at the motion, a heavy sigh leaving him. "You're not," he says lowly, brows furrowing. He looks back up at her. "You're not alright, Sansa."

Her mouth parts but it's only silence that blankets her tongue.

Theon watches the two of them uneasily.

And then Bran scoffs a laugh, short and resigned. "But you wouldn't tell me about it even if I asked, would you?"

She tries to object but he cuts her off before she can.

"I know you too well for that, so don't bother denying it."

Sansa clamps her mouth shut, throat dry. She pulls her hand from Bran's, takes a steadying step back, shoulders straightening. "You should settle in. You must be tired from the journey." She forces another smile, though she already knows Bran will never take it at value. Even still, she cannot give up this smokescreen. Not yet.

Bran nods, mouth pursed into a frown. "Right." Another nod, another glance around the golden halls. "Right," he says, one last comforting smile sent her way. "I'll find you in the evening."

"We'll have dinner," she assures.

"And Jon?"

She cannot stop the minute tremor that rocks her practiced smile, unsure whether the motion has gone unnoticed by her little brother or not. She only beams wider. "He'll be there."

Bran gives her one last unconvinced look before he's off.

Sansa stands watching him with hands clasped tightly before her.

"You know, you're still as shitty a liar as you've always been," Theon says beside her.

Despite herself, she laughs, the sound watery and choked off. She clears her throat, gives him a disparaging look, softened somewhat by his roguish smile.

Sansa turns fully to Theon. "Thank you, for getting him safely here."

Theon's smile wilts slightly, face going somber. "I didn't come here just as an escort," he says lowly.

Her brows dip down in confusion, stepping toward him. "What do you mean?"

Theon glances down the hall past her, and then takes her by the elbow. "Not here," he says.

Sansa feels her chest heaving at the sudden severity of his tone, her tongue going dry, but she shakes her head, manages a thin voice when she takes his wrist and directs him down the hall. "This way."

They make it to her chambers without much interruption, and Sansa closes the door behind her quickly, striding back up to Theon with a worried thumb pressed to her palm. "Theon, tell me."

He sets his pack atop the desk, his bow following shortly thereafter, and digs out a sealed missive from his pocket. "Your father wanted me to deliver this to the king directly. Said he couldn't trust a raven not to be intercepted."

Sansa reaches for the scroll, turning it over in her hands, eyes catching along the thick red wax of its seal, the imprint of a direwolf set to it. She blinks concerned eyes up at him. "What's happened?" She hands the scroll back with caution.

Theon tucks the missive away again, sighing as he scrubs a hand down his face. "Maybe nothing. Maybe a whole lot of something."

"Theon," she urges.

"Lord Stark thinks Stannis is on the move again."

Sansa's jaw tightens, her swallow loud in her ears. "Stannis Baratheon?"

He nods, a heavy sigh leaving him. "He can't be sure yet, still waiting to confirm with his sources but he thinks...he's pretty sure Stannis has been massing another army."

Sansa's eyes go wide. "No, he wouldn't. He hasn't the forces or the support since his last attack seven years ago."

"A lot's happened in seven years," Theon reminds her.

Her eyes narrow on him, her breaths coming shallow now, frenzied.

"A lot of grudges built up over these last seven years. A lot of..." he stops, rubs at his jaw, gives her a meaningful look. "A lot of discontent with the current rule."

Her mouth parts, a forceful scoff leaving her. "Not enough to warrant any of the kingdoms allying with Stannis. They'd be fool to," she hisses. And then she sucks in a breath, eyes blinking furiously. "Gods, Father hasn't... he hasn't..."

Theon bites off a scoff. "Of course he hasn't broken faith with the crown." And then he gives an exaggerated eyeroll. "Even though he _should_."

Sansa grabs him by the arms, stepping into him. "Theon Greyjoy, don't you talk like that."

A brief flicker of anger flashes across his features when he stares down into her face. "And why not? You can't have any more love for this king than the rest of us. Rhaegar's proven to be just like every other Targaryen that's ever sat that throne," he grinds out, a finger pointed in the direction of the Great Hall, gaze snapping.

The realization comes crashing into her.

Sansa curls her hands along his sleeves, stares up at him imploringly. "Theon, don't you understand? Don't you _get it_?" Her voice cracks. She swallows back the break, licks her lips, tries again. "This is my home now – this! This is it for me. _They_ are my family. I'm a Targaryen now, Theon, as much as I'll always be a Stark. How dare you try to shame me for it? This marriage I conceded to _for us_. Our family, our people. It cannot be undone, certainly not now. This is the bed we've made, my father and I. My family and I. Don't ask me to go against that, to put my life at risk so cavalierly, to put the life of my – " She cuts herself short, the words dying along her tongue. Her chest heaves with her indignation, with her fear, with the strangling realization that there can be no going back now.

Not even if she'd wanted to.

(She hates that her first thought is of Jon, her first instinct is to run to him.)

Sansa shakes her head, clears her throat. She tugs at Theon's sleeves urgently, watching his face sharpen in concern. "You don't know what you're saying," she sighs.

It all comes into bleary focus, tentative and uneven, the edges of her vision inking into a slow-cut clarity.

Stannis will never forgive her father for bending the knee, not after Robert's death. His pride won't allow it. Which makes Sansa very much a target for him, here in the capital amongst his enemies. She remembers the story of Rhaenys' abduction and assault, her eyes closing at the sudden hitch in her throat. Because even after everything, even after hearing those vile things she'd said to Jon, even after learning she has no intention of unhooking her claws from him – Sansa _still_ would not wish such a fate on anyone.

Not on anyone.

She takes a breath, feels it settle tartly along her tongue.

But she is a Targaryen princess now herself, isn't she? She is just as much at risk if Stannis moves on the capital. And she has no illusions as to the lengths her father will go to in order to keep her safe. He'd already proven that with his sister. And there Lyanna is again – like a memory that is not her own, a familiarity she shouldn't feel.

(A wolf left to cage...)

And even if her father switches alliances (something she very much doubts but has never fully discounted), her fate would be even more certain. She has no means to return to Winterfell if war broke out, no means to smuggle herself out of the capital and back home. She would be at the mercy of the king, holding her captive, surely, as a safeguard against any rebellion Ned Stark might contemplate.

Especially when he finds she's with child.

There is no path without danger. There is no guarantee in this world.

It breaks from her in a broken sob, instant and unbidden. She pulls a hand from his sleeve to stifle the sound, palm pressed to her mouth, eyes blinking back the wetness.

"Sansa," Theon says, his voice impossibly soft then. His hands go to her elbows.

"Oh gods, Theon, what do I...what do I do?" she asks wildly, gaze snapping back up to his.

(No guarantee.)

She's afraid this babe has been doomed from the start.

It chokes the air from her lungs, a reckless, fierce sort of protectiveness ricocheting through her. "What do I _do_?" she moans, head shaking.

Theon's mouth parts, his eyes shifting between hers, brows pinched tight. "Sansa, calm down," he urges, hands tightening over her elbows. "Talk to me."

She shakes her head, lip caught between her teeth.

No. No, she can't. She can't share this with anyone. She can't share this with _anyone_ except -

Jon.

Another sob breaks from her, breath catching with it, her chest tight, so tight, it's like her lungs are being hollowed out from the inside.

" _Talk_ to me," he urges, a hand rising to her cheek, the pads of his fingertips barely a brush along her jaw and her first instinct is to draw back from the touch, to curl away from the warmth, even as she wishes for it, because it isn't the right kind of warmth, it isn't _his_ , and nothing feels right anymore unless it's his, unless it's _his_ calloused fingertips along her jaw, or _his_ breath fanning her cheeks, or _his_ voice at her ear, or _his_ name on her lips, or _his his his_ -

Like she is his, always – even still.

Even when she is less and less sure that he will ever truly be _hers_.

"Sansa - "

"You will step away from my wife, Greyjoy."

Sansa's head snaps up at the cold voice, stilling instantly, her sob halting dead in her throat.

Jon stands in the threshold, face blank and impassive, but the clench of his jaw, the stiffness of his bearing, all of this sends Sansa's heart to thundering. She releases Theon instantly, taking a cautious step back.

His eyes follow the motion without word.

Theon's hand stays locked at her elbow though, keeping her from fully extricating herself, and she snaps her gaze up to Theon instantly, breath raking through her chest. "Theon," she whispers.

His hand falls from her arm slowly, eyes trained on Jon, face a sudden, unfamiliar hardness.

And then Jon barks a laugh, sharp and pungent. Sansa nearly flinches at the sound.

"You're quite familiar with my wife, aren't you?" he asks on a snarl, taking a step toward them.

Sansa blinks at the comment, glancing back to Theon, gauging the distance between them, before looking back to Jon.

A flare of anger lights within her, small and unyielding.

"Theon's come from escorting Bran back from Winterfell, my lord. I asked him here to talk. I'm sick for home already, you see," she says tightly, jaw clenching beneath the bite of her words.

Jon arches a brow her way, something unreadable passing through his gaze, and instantly, they are back to that last conversation, the air stilted between them, the heat of their words boiling beneath their tongues, and she has to glance away, unable to look at him, her arm pulling from Theon's hold entirely now.

He relinquishes her easily, though he does not step back.

Jon eyes him darkly.

Sansa presses a hand to Theon's arm, urging him away. "I'll call on you later. You should go."

"No, stay," Jon interrupts with a snap of his jaw.

Theon keeps his mouth in a tight line, eyes shifting toward the Targaryen prince.

Sansa snaps her gaze toward her husband. "My lord."

Jon sweeps a hand out, stalking toward them. "He's already made himself comfortable here, hasn't he? Here in our chambers? Why make him leave? You invited him for a reason, surely, my lady."

Sansa seethes beneath the implication, turning fully to him.

Jon's presence is a burning cloud, nearly leveling her, but she finds it in herself to move, to reach for him, her hands coming up to his chest. "My lord."

Jon seems to recoil at the address, at her touch, and she almost pulls back herself, so sick and tangled and ruptured beneath his harrowing gaze – so furiously lonely and so furiously bitter. But she doesn't. She presses into him. "Don't do this," she grinds out, the words like gravel along her tongue, and it seems to spark something in him, because then he's shaking his head, a hand through his curls, that jolting, coarse laugh cutting through the air once more, and it's a snarl that leaves him, the force of him pressing at her palms and she nearly buckles from it, nearly crumples in his wake.

"You dare touch her," he growls out, eyes cutting toward Theon.

Theon grinds his jaw at the words, but it's Sansa pushing back at him.

"Don't _do_ this," she hisses, pushing at his chest. "You have no right to do this!"

"No right?" he growls out, eyes narrowing on her, his chest heaving. "I am your husband."

"And a hypocrite!" she sobs, elbows nearly buckling, her gaze heated and yet ire-cold on his.

He grinds his jaw, face sharpening darkly. "Are you so blind, Sansa?" he bellows. "So ignorant? Or do you simply pretend to not notice his advances?"

"How dare you!" she shrieks, fingers bunching in his jerkin.

"Sansa - " Theon starts, his hand at her shoulder.

"Don't you fucking touch her," Jon snarls, pressing toward them.

Sansa is frantic, head shaking, her desperation bunched in her throat, eyes already stinging beneath the tears. "Stop it!" she yells.

Jon's eyes swing to hers, wild and dangerous. "Is this your vengeance? Huh? Is this how you punish me?" he asks on a snarl, voice cracking, shoving toward them with his ire.

She pushes back desperately, her body flattening to his, wedging herself between the two men, the tears hot at her lids now, and she's crying, she realizes suddenly. She's crying – she's _crying_ and - "Please, my lord, he's like a brother to me!"

Jon's hands go around her elbows, his fingers digging into her flesh when he glares at Theon over her shoulder, a sharp-toothed grimace leveled his way. "Oh, believe me, my lady, it is not as a sister that he looks upon you."

"And you are the authority on how a brother should look upon his sister?" she howls out, the breath ripping from her. She regrets it instantly.

Jon stills beneath her hands.

Sansa quiets on a shuddering pulse, stumbling against him, eyes wide at her own exhalation.

Jon swallows thickly, eyes fixed to hers, vicious and dark and cutting.

Her hands slip from his chest without word, trembling as she retracts from him.

A beat of silence passes between them.

Jon looks to Theon, cold and detached. "Leave my sight, Greyjoy. _Now_. Or your house ends here, I swear it," he grinds out, a deadly current to his words.

Theon shifts his gaze between the two, slow and measured, before grumbling his farewell, stalking from the room with his pack thrown over his shoulder, the door slammed behind him.

Jon and Sansa stay staring at each other for many long moments, chests heaving, fists bunched at their sides.

Sansa is the first to look away, a sudden shame filling her.

The silence goes on and on, burrowing beneath her skin, undoing her from the inside out. She tests the words on her tongue, lips parting hesitantly. It's only a croak that leaves her.

"Is this what you think of me?".

The words are so soft-spoken, held tight with a string that stitches their sounds together like a wolf's whine – tremulous. Low and nearly wind-smothered. They send her gaze flying back to his. In the wake of their shared stares, in the wake of their heavy-drawn breaths, Sansa thinks she sees the crack, the fissure. His face crumples barely imperceptibly, with a bitten down quiver to his jaw, with his brows furrowed tightly together, with a sheen of wetness over his eyes that is unmistakable.

It steals the breath from her lungs for a moment, sending her spinning.

She's hurt him.

She's hurt him dearly, she knows.

Sansa starts to shake. "Jon, I didn't... I didn't mean to..." None of the words seem right. Tears gather in the corners of her own eyes as she takes a step toward him, hands out-reaching.

His lip curls at the motion, taking a step back from her.

She sucks a sharp breath through her lungs, stilling instantly, staring at him. The tears are hot now, stinging.

"Is this what you think of me?" he bellows suddenly, face a ruin, and she startles at the sound, a hand flying to her chest as she blinks wildly at him.

"No, no, Jon, that isn't - "

He interrupts her with a scoff. "But of course you do. And why wouldn't you, filthy Targaryen that I am?"

Her throat feels tight. The words are hooked there, lying slaughtered at the back of her tongue.

Jon sneers then, ugly and dark, that wetness over his eyes startlingly bright. "You know, you come in here with your pretty little sheltered dreams, your narrow-minded expectations, your self-righteousness, just – just _absolutely_ certain you know what is right, and good, and fair. So _certain_. So certain that your world is the only world, and I'm _sorry,_ " he grinds out, teeth gritting, the heel of his palm wiped across one eye, "I'm so fucking sorry that I was the one who shattered that. Believe me, I didn't want to be. I didn't want to be the one who muddied that sweetness, but _godsdamnit_ Sansa, don't you understand? Don't you fucking get that I had my world shattered, too? Years ago! Well before you were even a thought in my life. And maybe – maybe I just wanted someone to tell me it was going to be okay, you know? Just that. I wanted only that, needed it – from _you_. But you – you..." He's panting, his voice hoarse, his eyes dark and frantic, and it's staggering, this force of him, this raging, desperate pain practically seeping into the air between them and she's - she's -

Jon stifles a dark laugh, voice cracking with the effort of it. "You couldn't even hold me," he croaks out, stumbling back a step, one hand going to his face, a heady shuddering breath pressed into his palm.

And oh, she wants to crumple to the floor, sink to her knees and wail – at him, at herself, at this horrid, demanding world, at everything between them now – sharp and bitter. She wants to gnash her teeth at it, to tear it up, spit it out. She wants to lay it to waste.

She just wants some quiet. Please, just some quiet. Let her think, let her _think_ , please -

"You left me," he says, staring at her now, his hand drawn back down from his face. "You left me when I needed you the most."

And there it is. There it fucking is. Blaring and unavoidable before her.

_There it is_.

What hurts the most is that he's right.

Her cheeks are wet, she finds, when she rubs at them – warm and wet and trembling. She wipes at the tears furiously, clears her throat, tries not to buckle at the knees. Somewhere inside her chest, a wail is already brewing.

Jon takes a single, deliberate step toward her. "I needed you to tell me I wasn't dirty. That I wasn't wrong – I wasn't exactly the kind of bastard I've always been told I was."

Her teeth are rattling in her skull, her voice clogged with the tears. Somehow, his name escapes her mouth, but it's more a ragged exhale of air than anything.

Jon shakes his head, takes another step, and then he stops. Everything seems to stop. Everything but the thundering of her heartbeat in her ears.

(He's so close – _so close_. Just a touch away.)

Her mouth tips open but nothing comes.

And then he sighs, and it seems to take everything of him – the anger swiped clean, leaving a quiet stillness to him instead. "I was thirteen, you know? Thirteen when Stannis attacked."

She can't help the whimper that slips past her lips, her hands shaking at her sides, shaking – to hold him.

His brows draw down into a tight line, his eyes never leaving hers. "I was thirteen when my sister was raped, when I lost my mentor, my friend, when I killed my first man. _Thirteen_ , Sansa."

Rickon flashes before her eyes – laughing and wolf-bright. A new pain festers in her chest suddenly.

"I'm not saying what I did was right. I'm not. But I was – I was alone, much as I imagine you feel right now. Ser Arthur was the closest thing to a father I'd ever had, and in an instant – gone. Not even the chance for a goodbye." He lets out a rueful chuckle, his voice straining. "No mother, as you know. And Lady Elia tried, she did, for a time. But I was never hers, and how could I be? How could I be anything more than a painful, brutal reminder to her? In the short years I had her I never...I never really _had her_. Through no fault of hers, of course but – but how do you explain that to a boy? How do you stem the bitterness of that?" He swallows, sighs, glances to his boots a moment. When he looks back up, the tears have not lessened. "Father was scarce with his affection but it was there, at times. Enough to make me yearn for it – sometimes recklessly so. But I was always the bastard son, even when, at times, he made me feel like I wasn't. Even when he _was_ a father. And Aegon, gods, Aegon is my brother, yes, my _brother_ and yet – " He stops, licks his lips, draws a steadying breath in. "Well, he's always been a true Targaryen. How could I expect anything less? But Rhaenys – Rhaenys was..."

Sansa tips her head up toward him, mouth trembling, eyes fixed to his. She is riveted – pained and aching. Her hands tremble to hold him, though she keeps herself in check. One touch and he might bolt from her. One touch and she may lose him for good.

Jon clears his throat roughly. "The one person who never left me had been brutalized beyond words. What was I supposed to do, Sansa? What was I supposed to do when she told me she needed me, needed my help, to feel whole again, to feel more than just pieces? What was I supposed to do?"

"I don't...I don't know," she gets out through shuddering breaths, her eyes shifting between his.

His shoulders slump with the words, his eyes closing, a slow breath leaving him, before he's slipping his eyes open once more to look at her. "It didn't happen from the start. It was slow, years long, before I...before I..."

"Before you slept with her." The words taste like bile on her tongue.

Jon nods, his jaw set tight.

"Years long," Sansa muses, her voice small and stricken. Her chest constricts at the thought. "Years that she spent convincing you it was right."

Another nod, his eyes never leaving hers.

She thinks of Rickon again, of Bran. A sick fury begins to fester in her gut.

(Even dying beasts can still wound. Even wingless dragons still have claws.)

What's been done to them, what they've done to each other – Sansa is near winded from it.

Self-righteous, indeed.

Her gut churns, one hand going to her stomach, head shaking.

And maybe this is the world they've always lived in. Maybe this is what lies beyond the smokescreen.

Wound upon wound upon wound. An endless cycle.

But when does it stop?

She thinks of the babe in her stomach, the promise of a future just on the flipside, just beneath her palm.

_He_ r palm. _Hers._

There is power here, if she only reaches for it. If only she wasn't -

"Scared," she whispers on a sharp inhale, the breath drawn tight into her lungs. "I'm scared, Jon."

It's the truest thing she's ever said.

Jon stays staring at her, an exhale rattling from him. "So am I," he says softly, his breath fanning her cheeks.

"No, Jon, you don't und – " She cuts herself off, voice breaking, hand tightening over her stomach, her other slinking into her collar, curling like a fist at her heart, shaking, and shaking, and _shaking_.

He doesn't know about the babe, or the scroll, or any of it. He doesn't understand the position he's put her in. The cage he's closed around her. And she is beating herself against the bars, she finds, thrashing and clawing and raging against it – blinded.

Because how does she tell him? How does she make him see any of this? Her lung-scraping terror. Her complete and crippling helplessness.

How does she explain to him that this makes her a hostage on all sides?

How does she explain that he is the only thing she wishes for, even still? Some measure of safety, of sureness, in this raging sea.

"Sansa," he says suddenly, voice thick and tear-laced, his hands coming up to grasp at her arms.

She gasps at the touch, leaning into him unconsciously, peering up at his face. She can trace the tear-tracks from where she stands, close enough to feel his hot breath on her cheeks.

"You need to know," he says, voice catching, swallowing thickly, hands tightening over her arms, "You need to know that ugliness had nothing to do with you. Okay?" he urges, jaw quaking now. "Nothing," he swears.

"Jon..."

"You're scared," he says, almost to himself, nodding with the affirmation. His face screws into something painful, a resigned sort of laugh jolting from him, tears gathering in the corners of his eyes. And then a smile, watery and sorrow-lined. "But that doesn't mean you don't love me," he whispers in the space between them.

Sansa stares unblinkingly at him, everything in her jarring to a halt, the breath winded from her.

Her hands slip uselessly to her sides.

Oh, but she would hold him. Hold him and hold him and bury herself in his embrace. Curl into the crooks of him and brace herself to the hollows of his body. Burrow into him and stay there, affixed, imprint herself upon him, the lines of him fitted exactly to her.

Two, into one, without undoing them.

Before she can even recognize the motion, his hand is settling at her brow, fingers drawn deftly down the slope of her cheek, slow and tender, ghosting over her skin like a farewell.

She stares at him.

He stares at her.

A farewell, she thinks, somehow -

"I just wish it was enough," he says on a choked breath, his hand falling from her jaw.

He draws from her instantly, silently. Sansa is bereft. She hasn't even the time to register the loss, the absence of him, her body swaying toward him unconsciously. She reaches for him, but he's already turning, already stalking from the room, already closing the door behind him without a second glance back.

She stumbles in the space left behind, eyes blinking blearily at the closed door.

That wail, that building, festering wail inside her – it finally breaks free, tears from her like a sudden-split wound, bone-rending and raw.

Her knees hit the stone floor.

Ache upon ache upon ache.

Wound upon wound upon wound.

_You left me_.

When does it stop?

Sansa squeezes her eyes shut, chest quaking beneath her shuddering wail, voice sundered in her throat.

No, it does not mean she doesn't love him. And _gods_ , how she hopes it will be enough.

How she hopes that he is wrong.

How she hopes he'd look back, just the once.

(Please, just the once.)

But it's only a closed, hollow door that greets her. It's only a silent room. It's only her own sobs that accompany her.

Love stripped them bare long ago, after all.

* * *

That night, it's Jon who sleeps with his back to her, the outline of him barely visible in the dark. She wakes to find him already gone. She watches Bran training in the yard with Ser Jaime after breakfast, continues her work on the handkerchief she never got to give to Robb, reads and rereads Margaery's most recent letter, until she finds herself stalking toward Rhaenys' chambers before dinner is served.

When she answers Sansa's knock, it's with her mouth parted in surprise and her hand slipping from the handle.

They stand staring at each other. Sansa clears her throat. She motions toward the room. "May I?"

Rhaenys purses her lips, but eventually, she steps aside, allowing Sansa space to walk past.

She strides into the room with her hands clasped before her, glancing about the space while her mind settles its whirling. She'd come here on a whim, reason escaping her, legs moving on instinct toward her door.

Now that she stands before her, the words seem to falter on her tongue.

Rhaenys shuts the door softly, making her way to the pair of cushioned chairs beside her hearth. She motions to one of them when Sansa turns to look at her.

"Tea?" she asks, voice stiff.

The practiced courtesy has Sansa nearly laughing – the strangeness of it. But she keeps her incredulity back behind clenched teeth. "I won't be long," she says instead, taking a seat across from the older woman.

Rhaenys shifts her skirts about her when she sits, shoulders pulling back. She meets Sansa's eye without shame.

Sansa wants to scoff at the look, to shake her, to send her spiraling back into that recklessness that first sent her to Jon that day – if only to ease this simmering anger. If only to see her with eyes unclouded by compassion.

Because no, she doesn't want to feel compassion. Not for this woman.

But it is harder than she thinks when she sits here watching her in silence, eyes catching along the way her fingers curl in her skirts, at the way her jaw clenches tight, at the way she looks her in the eye.

(She wonders if she would have liked this woman, had things been different. Had she never been marred by war. Had she never tainted her brother. Had she the freedom she's always been denied.

Sansa wonders if, in another life, they might have truly been sisters.

But that is not _this_ life.)

"I suppose you're here to tell me to stay away from Jon," Rhaenys says on a sigh, leaning back in her chair.

Sansa offers a thin smirk, her displeasure impossible to hold back. "No, you've done enough yourself in that regard."

Rhaenys narrows her eyes at her but says nothing.

Sansa glances out the window, licks her lips, tries to focus on the night's shadowy clouds rolling past.

"Then why are you here?" Rhaenys asks hesitantly, watching her keenly.

Sansa huffs a sigh, glancing back down to her lap. Her hands unfold, palms up, her eyes fixed to them. "I don't know," she whispers softly.

And the truth is, she may never know. She'd found herself outside Rhaenys' door before she even realized she was moving, before she even realized the need was in her. Now that she's here, she finds herself incomprehensibly blank – empty.

Sansa looks back up at Rhaenys.

Her eyes are dark, unfamiliar. Not the Stark grey or Targaryen violet she is used to. There is no Jon in her gaze, no Aegon or Daenerys. It is something else. Something separate entirely. Dark like raven's wings, a shadow against the sun, thick as smoke. Sansa wonders what she's seen, what these eyes have seen. She wonders where the smoke stops, and where the fire begins.

She has learned to be wary of dragons, even when they are bound.

"You still want him," she says finally, the words forming unconsciously on her tongue. "Or at least, you think you want him."

Rhaenys releases a derisive snort. "And what's that supposed to mean?"

"It's not him though, is it, that you truly want? Not Jon."

"I don't..." She shakes her head, brows scrunched down in confusion.

"He told me what you suffered seven years ago."

Rhaenys clamps her mouth shut, eyes flashing. She pulls her shoulders back, teeth bared in a hiss. "He had no right."

"Aye, he didn't," she agrees.

Rhaenys blinks at that, stunned into silence.

Sansa looks back down to her hands, watches the nervous press of her thumb into her opposite palm. She takes a breath, lets it to air. When she looks back up, her voice is steady again. "But neither had you."

Rhaenys recoils at the admonishment, her lip curling. "What?"

"You had no right to use him the way you did."

A rancid scoff leaves Rhaenys, her glare sharp and cutting. "You have _no idea_ what you're talking about."

"Hasn't he made it clear enough?" she presses, remembering the words she'd heard that day, pressed to the oak door, heart lurched up into her throat.

_I think you used me, and you knew it_.

"As his sister, his _older sister_ , you should have known better," Sansa says, throat tight with the words, a sudden, unexpected sob catching along her tongue.

Rheanys stares heatedly at her, a long, slow breath easing from her.

Sansa blinks, her eyes wet suddenly without her bidding. "You should have known better than to hurt him like that," she whispers. "Even if you were hurting, too."

_I'm scared._

_So am I_.

Wound upon wound upon wound.

When does it stop?

"He isn't yours to ruin. He isn't anyone's, but his own," she gets out through her faltering voice.

What he should have been from the start.

Not Targaryen. Not even Stark.

Just...Jon.

His own. No matter what he chooses.

His _own_.

Sansa promises herself this – she will never be his cage.

Rhaenys snarls, standing swiftly, eyes wet with the salt-sheen of tears she refuses to shed. "How dare you," she seethes.

"And I'm sorry," Sansa says suddenly, standing just as swiftly.

Rhaenys sways into silence at that, eyes widening.

Sansa clasps her hands tight before her, shuddering. "I'm so, so sorry that ever happened to you. I'm sorry you were alone. I'm sorry there was no one there to tell you everything was going to be okay. I'm sorry it _wasn't_ okay."

Rhaenys gulps, her jaw quivering. "Save your pity," she spits, the words exhaled on a tremble, tears gathering even still.

Sansa sighs, hands wringing before her. "You have to be the one, Rhaenys," she says softly, though firmly.

Rhaenys narrows her eyes at her.

She takes a breath, lets it fill her lungs, feels the strength of it branching through her. "If you love him, you have to be the one to say 'no'. The one who stops the hurt."

Rhaenys rears back at the words, face screwing into something ugly, that smoke-dark of her eyes glinting in the afternoon light, flickering wildly. Her mouth opens, closes, opens again. Only silence follows.

Wound upon wound upon -

"You have to be the one who says 'not again'."

Rhaenys sneers at her, the tears instant now, treading tracks down her cheeks like fallows. A sharp scoff breaks from her lips. "How charmingly endearing of you," she grits out. "How saintly."

"There's nothing saintly about how I feel about you, believe me," she manages, her lungs tight, fingers bunching before her.

Rhaenys glares at her, never bothering to wipe her tears. "I'm sure life in the capital has been _oh so difficult_ for you, little one, but don't you dare presume to know me, or to know what's right for me."

"I don't pretend to know you."

"Oh, that's rich."

"But I know Jon."

Rhaenys steps toward her menacingly. "Not as well as I know him."

"Evidently not," Sansa says, throat flexing with her control. "Or else you wouldn't have pressed him so."

Rhaenys stops, eyes flickering darkly between Sansa's own.

Never a cage. Not her own. And not his. This she promises herself.

She will leave neither of them to rot.

"You are his sister," Sansa says. "And you always will be."

Something of a whimper sounds from Rhaenys, choked off and barely there. But Sansa hears it all the same.

"But...?"

"But I can no longer welcome you as mine," she says evenly.

Rhaenys nods silently, mouth thinned into a tight line, one hand going to brush at the tear tracks along her cheeks. It does little to clear them. "Then I guess you've lost nothing, Lady Sansa. Not a husband, and not a sister." Her smile is pained and small, barely more than a curl of her lip.

Sansa sees the bruise behind it all the same. Maybe because she imagines it is the same smile reflected back. She takes a breath, and then takes a step. "Rhaenys, I – "

She's interrupted by the sudden, resounding clang of bells that signals an attack.

Both she and Rhaenys snap their gazes to the window, bounding toward it as the second knell sounds, their eyes squinting in the darkness.

From their position at the window, Sansa can see a flood of torches across the bay - a mass of ships speeding toward them in the darkness. Her stomach sinks, her knuckles white along the sill. She starts to shake.

Rhaenys glances to her, brow set, and then she's grabbing for her wrist, tugging Sansa after her forcefully, toward the door. "Come on," she urges, flinging the door open.

Distantly, the sound of clashing arms echoes through the stone halls, and the two women skid to a halt just outside the door, a rush of guards sweeping past them.

Sansa's breath hitches.

No. _No_. How can Stannis be here already? How can they be _inside the Keep_ already? Something is terribly, terribly wrong.

Sansa reaches for her throat, clutching at her lace-lined collar, fingers trembling. Her other hand hangs limply at her side, Rhaenys' grip still curled around her wrist.

Another company of soldiers comes bounding through the hallway then, and Rhaenys grabs for one instantly, halting him with a forceful tug and a command.

"What's going on?" she demands.

The man stumbles before her, a deep bow sending his armor clanking, before he shoots back up, eyes wide. "It's Stannis, m'lady. He's attacking."

Rhaenys releases him on a sharp intake of breath. "What?" she whispers, hand held mid-air, trembling already.

Sansa glances beside her to the Targaryen princess, and all at once, she is a seventeen year old girl in her eyes, a sudden terror lighting within her, chest constricting at the sight of her, suddenly shrunken in and quaking.

(Is this what she looked like? Eyes red-rimmed and wide, terror sunk into the corners of her gaping mouth?)

"M'ladies, you've got to get to the Maidenvault. Guards are on their way. Troops have already breached the keep," the man urges, glancing back down the hallway where his company has disappeared.

"That's impossible," Sansa breathes.

Rhaenys falters beside her, eyes glazing over, staring dumbly at the man.

Sansa feels Rhaenys' hand slip from around her wrist but she grabs for it on instinct, nails digging into the other woman's knuckles, hoping – distantly – that the pain may anchor her.

The soldier gives a grunt of acknowledgement. "Not if he had help," he curses.

Rhaenys whimpers at her side, going limp. Sansa tugs her to face her then, her other hand grasping at Rhaenys' arm, shaking her forcefully. "Rhaenys," she implores.

Only her wild gaze meets her, mouth parted soundlessly, head shaking.

"Rhaenys," she snaps, another shake rattling her.

Rhaenys blinks into awareness, eyes widening even further. "Oh gods. Oh gods, _Stannis_ ," she moans.

"They will not have us," Sansa swears, head inclined toward hers.

The sound of battle resounds through the halls, sharp and instant – ever closer.

Rhaenys whips her head toward the sound, trembling violently. "No, not again. _Please no_ , not again!"

"Rhaenys, listen to me," Sansa urges, shaking her again, until her frantic gaze lands back on Sansa's. "You've got to get to the Maidenvault, do you understand me?"

Rhaenys gulps, staring at her, rigid in her grasp.

"Do you understand me?" she snaps again, fear rising in her throat, cracking her words.

"I understand," she whispers, the tear tracks along her cheeks not even dried yet.

Sansa turns swiftly to the guard beside them. "You will escort her."

Rhaenys tugs at their joined hands suddenly, drawing her back to her, her other hand gripping at her elbow, nails clawing into her skin. "You can't leave me."

Sansa is struck dumb by the ardent plea, mouth tipping open at the frantic, terrified gleam in Rhaenys' eyes, at the fierceness with which she grips her. "Rhaenys."

"You can't _leave_ me," she begs, voice breaking, tears fresh along her cheeks, curling into her.

Sansa is breathless at the stark, unbridled fear that bleeds from her, soaking into her own skin, branding her. She squeezes her eyes shut, tries to rein in her breathing, hand uncurling from Rhaenys', tugging forcefully from her. The sounds of battle have not waned.

"They will not have you, I promise," she swears, licking her lips, breath rattling in her lungs. "Jon won't - " She stops, swallows thickly, tries again. "Jon won't let them have you."

Rhaenys stares at her, mouth hitched open. The guard beside them shuffles his weight, looking anxiously down the corridor.

"Jon and Aegon will protect you, okay? You just have to get to them. You have to make it to them, do you understand?"

"Ride," Rhaenys whimpers beneath her breath, eyes glazed over, lost somewhere Sansa may never follow.

Sansa's chest constricts at the whisper, eyes wet instantly, the memory of Jon's story bright and immediate in her mind. But she nods, pushing her toward the guard. "Ride," she repeats, voice catching in her throat. She gives a commanding nod to the guard, practically depositing Rhaenys in his hands. "Take her."

"M'lady - "

"I have to find Bran," she says, already gathering her skirts, already turning down the corridor.

She glances back at a shell-shocked Rhaenys just the once.

Just the once.

(When does it stop?)

She doesn't look back twice.


	13. You, Only

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "They stand like this, in the wake of it all. Apart. And shaken.
> 
> But the realization – the realization is this:
> 
> He still doesn't regret it." -
> 
> Jon and Sansa. Like the curve of the horizon, when the moon breaks from beneath its bow.

Disclaimer: I own nothing, I make no money.

From Instep to Heel

Chapter Thirteen: You, Only

" _They stand like this, in the wake of it all. Apart. And shaken._

_But the realization – the realization is this:_

_He still doesn't regret it."_ -

Jon and Sansa. Like the curve of the horizon, when the moon breaks from beneath its bow.

* * *

"Ned Stark sends word that Stannis may be on the move again," Rhaegar says gruffly, hands behind his back as he stalks the length of his desk. He shoots a look toward his sons.

On the other side of the desk, Jon stans beside Aegon. "What?" he manages to get out.

Rhaegar stills his pacing. "Theon Greyjoy relayed the message to me last night, on behalf of Lord Stark," he says, holding up the unsealed scroll, the broken wax in the image of a direwolf still caked to the edges of the parchment. He tosses it to the desk, a grimace set to his face.

Aegon steps forward. "Father - "

"Even if I wanted to question Lord Stark's word I haven't the luxury. We're hardly in a position to survive another rebellion without the North's support."

Jon clenches his jaw but stays silent.

Rhaegar sighs, a hand going up to pinch the bridge of his nose. "We have the Lannisters with Cersei tied to my brother, and Dorne's support is without question." He glances to Aegon at that, before turning fully to the both of them. "But the Reach is tied to the North now, with Robb Starks' recent wedding, and that would certainly be to our advantage _only if_ I could be sure of the North's fealty."

Aegon narrows his eyes at the comment, a glance toward Jon out of the corner of his eye. "Have you any reason to doubt that fealty, Father?"

Rhaegar hums softly to himself, fingers rubbing at his chin. His violet eyes set to Jon's, sharp and intent. "What were your impressions, son, when you were at Winterfell?"

Jon's brows furrow at the question, his throat tightening. "They are a loyal bunch," he says finally, voice clipped.

"Yes, but loyal to _who_?"

Jon swallows, letting a slow breath out. "To Ned Stark, my lord."

Rhaegar's mouth thins into a frown.

"Who is loyal to _you_ ," Jon presses, voice firm, an ardency to his features.

Aegon stays silent at his side.

"If you have Ned Stark, then you have the North," Jon assures his father.

"Yes, but do I _have_ Ned Stark? That is the question," Rhaegar grouses beginning to pace again, face darkened with doubt.

(Jon wonders – wildly – if this is what his grandfather had looked like, before the end.)

"I never should have sent you North," Rhaegar grumbles, seemingly to himself. "If this news had come to us while you were there - if they refused to send the Stark girl back with you – "

"But I came back," Jon interrupts, stepping forward. "I'm here, Father." His voice is like gravel in his throat, rough and constricted. "I'm here." It comes out far more unsteady than he intends.

Rhaegar's face softens at his words, halting in his pacing once more. "That you are, son," he says. And then he's coming around the desk toward him, both hands clamping to his shoulders. "As is your wife."

Jon blinks in unease at the words, mouth pressed tightly closed.

"That's in our favor," Rhaegar says with a last lingering clench of his shoulder, before his hands fall from Jon, winding together behind his back once more.

"Ned Stark will never abandon his daughter," Aegon says with surety, chin lifted.

Jon swings a sharp gaze toward his brother. "My wife is not a hostage," he says coldly.

"No, she's a Targaryen now," Aegon says pointedly, one brow arched his way.

"This is why you married, Jon," his father says, drawing his attention back. "Lord Stark cannot betray the crown without also betraying his daughter. And I've no intention of releasing her again."

Jon opens his mouth, the words faltering on his tongue, before swallowing back the attempt.

_I'm scared_.

Is this what Theon and she had been speaking of when he found them the night before? Is this what she meant? Surely, she must have had similar thoughts, must have known there was no escaping King's Landing at such a time. Surely, she must have seen the cage for all its bars.

The cage he and his family put her in.

Jon balks at the realization.

(Not a cage door swinging wide. Not at all.)

And how utterly, _utterly_ stupid of him. To think it was freedom he'd granted her with the truth.

Jon clenches his fists at his sides, his voice lodging in his throat. The words die on his tongue.

Aegon peers curiously at him, but before he can open his mouth to say more, the sound of boots pounding against stone echoes from down the hall and all three men swing their attention to the door just as it bursts open, a sentry nearly falling through it, panting, steadying himself. Two of Rhaegar's Kingsguard crowd the open door, hands already at the hilts of their sheathed swords.

"Your Grace!"

Jon tenses at the wild look of the guard.

Rhaegar stalks around the desk toward him. "What is it, man?"

"Stannis, in the bay. It's...it's an attack, Your Grace," he gasps.

Jon's vision goes white for a blaring, endless second, his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth. "What?" he croaks out.

Rhaegar splutters beside them.

Aegon's hands slip from behind his back, eyes darting toward the window, but the cover of night is already blanketing the keep. "How many?" he grinds out.

"Can't rightly say, m'lord, some six thousand we wager. Maybe more. His ships are nearing the shallows already. Should we mass at the Mud Gate, Your Grace?" he asks now, turning swiftly toward Rhaegar.

"How did we not hear of their fleet before?" Rhaegar mutters to himself, eyes widening, glancing out toward the night. His features screw up in anger. "Where was my brother? Where were Viserys' ships?"

The guard's mouth opens and closes without words to follow.

Rhaegar's face pinches into a dark visage. "Blackwater Bay is under his guard, from here to Dragonstone, the incompetent fool! _Where was he?_ "he bellows.

The guard shrinks back.

Aegon steps forward. "Father, we'll deal with Viserys later. Right now, the men need your orders. Shall we form at the Mud Gate?"

Rhaegar wipes a hand over his mouth to calm his anger, nodding toward his eldest son. "Yes, yes. Have it done." He waves the guard away.

Jon licks his lips. "Father - "

A sharp clang and a shout resounds past the window. The growing eddy of voices, more clashing. Jon bolts to the window, eyes straining in the near dark, the flicker of torches outlining shadows and then –

"Intruders! Intruders in the Keep! Intru – " The guard's warning shout cuts off in a gurgle, a small flood of unmarked men storming the courtyard below.

Jon's hands pull back from the ledge as if burned. He whips his head back to his father and brother, eyes wide. "They're in the keep," he breathes out disbelievingly.

"What?" Rhaegar shrieks.

Chaos erupts below.

Everything snaps into clean clarity within Jon, a narrowing vision, a sharp focus.

_Get to Sansa_.

It's all that fills his mind.

"Don't let them open the gates!" he bellows down to the guards beneath, waiting only long enough to hear their resounding call in answer, before stalking back through the room, eyes fixed to the sentry staring wide-eyed at him. "Bring us our weapons. Sound the call to arms."

He doesn't wait for a second command, bounding back through the door.

"They had help," Rhaegar whispers, disheartened, head shaking. "They had help, or these Baratheon loyalists never would have made it inside the Keep."

Aegon squares his jaw, a hand going to Rhaegar's arm. "Father, I have to find Daenerys."

Rhaegar nods dumbly, eyes unfixed, glancing up at his son. "Yes, of course. The Maidenvault. The guards would have brought them to the Maidenvault. You should go."

Jon nods, sharing a glance with Aegon. "We'll secure the ladies, and then help clear the keep."

"No," Rhaegar says suddenly, a hand shooting out to grasp at Jon's sleeve. "No, you'll stay with me, son."

Jon's brows sharpen down. "But Father – "

"Aegon will keep them safe." He glances to his eldest son then, jaw clenched, a fierce nod his way. "You will find Lady Sansa, and our Rhaenys. You will protect them. Protect Daenerys. You and she are the future of House Targaryen, do you understand?"

"I understand," Aegon swears.

A ripe panic rips through Jon's chest.

_Get to Sansa_.

He claws at the hand in his sleeve, fingers curling over his father's. "Please, Father, let me...I have to..."

Rhaegar's eyes flick back to Jon's. Outside, the battle grows louder. "You must protect your father," he urges.

That panic grows wild, froths in his throat. "You have your Kingsguard!"

"But I trust _you_."

Jon snaps to stillness at the words.

Rhaegar stares at him long and hard. His hand slips from his sleeve, tearing from Jon's trembling fingers. "You will protect your father," he repeats, voice low and even. "You will protect your king."

Jon stumbles back a step, chest heaving, throat filled with words he doesn't know how to bring to air, not without rending it, at least.

Just then, the sentry from earlier comes running through the open door, a host of guards at his back. One of them hands Jon his sword, another going to immediately secure his armor. Rhaegar and Aegon are addressed similarly, the silence in the room sending Jon to quaking beneath his skin. It's over in a matter of seconds, or maybe minutes. Jon cannot tell. There's a disconnect. A surreal sort of detachment that overtakes him.

_Get to Sansa, get to Sansa._

_Sansa, Sansa, Sansa._

A mantra branded into his skull.

He keeps his lip caught so tight beneath the clamp of his teeth he thinks blood is sure to follow.

"You have your duties," Rhaegar commands, adjusting the collar of his breastplate. "Do not disappoint me." And then he's stalking from the room, the host of guards following him, his Kingsguard at his shoulders, and Jon's eyes follow his diminishing figure through the torchlit corridor when he makes it to the door after him, a hand at the threshold.

Aegon settles beside him, gleaming and silver in his armor, hair pulled back into a knot of white gold, features sharpened into a regality Jon had once been envious of, a visage of what he used to be, before he'd lost one too many unborn children – before he'd crumbled beneath the weight of a grief Jon would wish on no one.

His brother – as he'd always known him. Sword in hand. Straight-backed. Eyes forward.

He would protect her, he knows, even after everything. Aegon would protect Sansa. As surely as he would protect Rhaenys or Daenerys.

_She's a Targaryen now_.

Jon closes his eyes, breathes deep.

But she'd never not be a wolf. She'd never abandon her pack.

She'll go for Bran, he thinks instantly.

Jon opens his eyes, that clean clarity shuddering everything else away. An unearthly calm overtakes him. Everything is simple now.

Get to Sansa, because nothing else matters. Not her acceptance of him, not her forgiveness for his omission, not her love or her understanding or any of it. Not any of what he'd demanded of her – foolishly, selfishly.

_You left me_.

It's easy to say he'd been ready to lose her. Easy to say, and impossible to do. Because he hadn't been ready at all. He hadn't been anything more than a needful, grasping child.

That anger. That anger that's haunted him since childhood. It sinks its hooks, even now. Even with her.

No, he hadn't been ready to lose her. Hadn't been ready to take that high road, to hold true to his promises, to _give her time_. Hadn't been ready for her not to fall aimlessly and instantly back into his arms.

A hypocrite, she had called him. And she had been right.

Because now it all just seems so pointless.

If she isn't in this world, then it's not a world he wants. Whether she wants _him_ or not. Whether she wants a world _with him_ or not. Because if it's between saving her or keeping her, he knows what his choice would be. Every time.

It is not a difficult choice, after all.

That anger. So familiar, it's seeped into his bones. Honed him. _Made_ him.

That kind of anger, that kind of rage – it powers you, keeps you moving. Right up until the moment it splits you open, hurls a piece of you –jagged and uncut – into something you love. Mars it beyond repair. Let's you watch the aftermath, drunk on your own ire, your own resentment.

Let's you kill what is precious.

Bleeding out is a slow business, after all. Sometimes there's even time to say goodbye.

Jon unsheathes his sword, eyes following the trail of his father, the path he must take – the path he must, and yet, the path he won't.

_Get to Sansa_.

(Because nothing else matters. _Nothing_. Not even him.)

Jon looks back to Aegon. His brother is watching him, a knowing expression falling into place over his features. "Jon..."

"She won't go to the Maidenvault," Jon says. He gulps, licks his lips. "Sansa. She won't go."

Aegon turns more fully to him, hand firm at the hilt of his sword. "Jon," he says again, this time firmer, a command.

"She'll go for Bran," he says succinctly, as though it is all the explanation there is to give.

Aegon grinds his jaw, a hand slipping out to grasp at Jon's sleeve. "Father will never forgive you if you do this," he implores, a desperate glint to his eye, a harrowing look, and Jon has never seen him like this before.

Never seen him so scared.

He glances to Aegon's hand at his sleeve, and then the hand at his hilt. Neither shakes, though maybe that is more telling than he thinks. Jon manages a rueful smile, eyes flitting up to his brother's. "I will never forgive myself if I don't," he counters honestly. Jon sucks in a breath, back straightening, gaze hardening. "I made my choice long ago, Aegon. And I chose her."

Aegon's hand slips from his sleeve, jaw clenching tight.

"I will choose her every time," Jon says, like a promise, or maybe like a warning. He can't be sure. Either way, it's a truth. Of this, at least, he is sure.

Aegon looks away, down the corridor where their father has disappeared. Slowly, he draws his own sword. His eyes meet Jon's again. "I will not abandon Daenerys," he says, as though in reprimand.

But Jon would expect nothing less. "I do not ask you to protect Father in my stead."

Aegon's eyes narrow on him. "Then..."

"I won't regret my choice, Aegon. Don't regret yours." And then he's turning, running the opposite way, never looking back.

His boots thud along the stone, his heart lurching in his throat, his breath caught along his tongue.

_Get to Sansa._

And if he's being honest, it's the easiest choice he's ever made.

* * *

She thinks of smoke, dark and billowing. Caught in her windpipes. Choking her from the inside out.

That's what fear is, she realizes.

A cloud of toxins. A foul suffocation. Bitter on the tongue. Sharp in the lungs.

This is fear, she realizes, as she runs, gasping, breathless, knuckles white as they grip her skirts.

This is fear.

(Maybe some part of her had always thought it'd feel different. Less wild. More steady. Something she could grasp. Something she could shutter away with sure palms and a firm voice. Something manageable.)

Sansa nearly laughs at the thought.

'Manageable'.

As though anything she's felt in these last months has been _manageable._

She keeps running. Keeps sprinting,

_Bran._

If she has nothing else in this world, she has him. Pack. Her brother. _Pack_.

She doesn't know how to let go.

"Bran!" she calls out, panting, stumbling in her run. "Bran!"

Her eyes tear instantly. She keeps running. Everything else is white, just bare glimpses of rushing guards and wailing handmaids and flickering torches in the night – images blurring past in sharp fineness through her vision, a tunnel focus, the long wind of the corridor her only view – ever long.

"Bran!" she calls.

"Sansa!" she hears echo against the stone.

Her breath hitches, her feet stumbling to a halt. The clash of arms is loud, resounding, closer than she expects. She's near the fighting she knows. But she can't stop running.

"Bran!"

The sudden swipe of steel before her sends her stumbling, yelping, falling to the stone floor in a fumble of skirts and flailing arms, her eyes wide, fixed on the incoming blade, breathless, and then -

A sharp parry. Blade on blade, half a breath away from her face.

Bran steps into her vision, his back to her, his blade shoving roughly against her attacker. He throws a hand back at her, reaching blindly for her. "Are you alright?" he barks out.

She fumbles to her feet, her hand reaching for his, backing away with him, awkward in their stumble. "Bran," she breathes in half-spent relief behind him.

He only huffs impatiently.

It is over in a matter of moments, a matter of swipes.

Sansa stands quivering in the corridor, the bodies of several Baratheon loyalists littering the hall, her little brother -

_Her little brother –_

Standing blood-splattered and silent before her.

She blinks at the realization, eyes glancing around the bodies once more. Yes, her little brother. Barely more than a boy and yet he's already killed his first man. Killed many of them, it seems. Her mouth tips open in new horror, a sadness crashing through her.

He turns to her, his cheeks red with blood. "Sansa," he breathes, shaking already, though he tries to hide it, and oh, she breaks.

Her hands go for his shoulders, her body already slumping against him. "Oh gods, Bran," she breathes, voice cracking. "Bran," she moans brokenly.

He catches her in her near fall, one hand locked around her forearm, his other still held tight to the hilt of his blade, unable to let go. "Sansa," he urges, shaking her with a fierceness, voice lodging in his throat. "Sansa, what are you doing here?" he asks urgently, his bloodied sword tipping to the ground, forgotten. His fear for her seems to eclipse anything else he's struggling with, and she finds a new reason to curse this world.

Sansa pulls back just enough to wind her hands around his face, to hold him to her, her voice shrill in her fear. "You are my own. My brother. _Mine,"_ she urges, fingers flexing over his cheeks, the words rushing out of her without reason or temperance.

He peers up into her own clear-cut gaze.

They stay staring at each other for a single breathless moment.

"I would not leave you," she gets out hoarsely.

Bran closes his eyes, breathes a long breath of unease, shakes his head, opens his eyes. "Sansa,": he urges, his hand curling over her elbow forcefully.

Her hands drop back down to his shoulders, unable to part from him, to lose him. "Where is Ser Jaime?" she asks, glancing around at the littered bodies across the hall. "Why is he not here with you?"

"You know why," he bites outs. "He's Kingsguard. There is only one place for him to go."

Sansa silences at the reminder, a slow nod sent her brother's way, her hands finally slipping from his shoulders.

In the distance, the clash of arms sounds ever closer. Both of them whip their heads toward the noise.

Sansa feels it hammering in her chest – that fear. Her eyes are fixed to the long wind of the dark corridor when she whispers again, "I would not leave you." Tears well in her eyes suddenly. She wipes at them furiously.

She can't go back.

Bran turns back to her, quiet and stiff. And then he's reaching for her hand, a labored sigh leaving him. "Stay close to me," he tells her, blinking through the flickering torchlight lining the walls. "I'll protect you," he promises, even though he must know she can feel his hand trembling in hers.

She looks to him finally, a grim smile tugging at the edge of her lips. She believes him, she does. He will always protect her. Her brother.

But even still –

(His name lands on her lips unbidden. "Jon," she mouths silently, a yearning, her jaw quaking as she swallows back the sob.)

Even still –

Bran tugs her after him, and then she is running again – running, running, running, the fear biting and pungent at her heels.

_Jon_ , she doesn't say.

_Jon_ , she doesn't plead.

But she cannot stop the tears from falling, nor her terror from blooming.

* * *

"Sansa!" he calls out, her name echoing through the keep.

Jon cuts down another soldier, and then another, another. Again and again. He keeps moving. Doesn't stop.

"Sansa!" he shouts, curls plastered to his forehead with the sweat, a hand wiped roughly over his blood-stained cheek, limbs aching, muscles clenching.

He keeps moving.

"Sansa!"

"Jon!"

He whips around at the echo, pushes through a passing company of guards, eyes frantic. The grip on his sword tightens, the breath raking from him. "Sansa! Sansa, where are you?" he shouts, barreling through the corridor, heading toward the eastern courtyard.

"Jon!" And then a yelp, a smothered cry.

The blood rushes instantly, his lungs clenching over her name in his throat, panting as he breaks into the courtyard, barely able to glance around before a Baratheon soldier is rushing him. He parries instantly, grunting from the force of it, shoving the man back just as another soldier comes at him from the left. Jon twists out of reach, blinking furiously through the sweat, bringing his sword down along the man's back. An ugly hack, and then a shove with his boot, a roar breaking from him when he charges the second man. Another clash, teeth grit, face screwed tight with anger and exhaustion in equal measure. But he can't rest. He can't, he can't, he can't, not until –

"Jon!" Her voice cuts through his haze, and his gaze flashes left, catches sight of Sansa braced against the far wall, eyes wide as they take him in. Just before her, Bran is engaging one of their attackers, slicing at his knee, sending him to the floor, taking a swing at his neck without hesitation. Instantly, three more soldiers are rushing from the southern entrance toward the two.

Everything else cuts to black. The exhaustion is gone. The surrounding screams mute out.

Their eyes meet.

Desperation rips from him, tears through his throat, thunders through the air in a bone-rattling roar when he shoves off his opponent, throws him back to the ground, shoves his sword through his gut in a sickening plunge. His vision goes red, swimming with his fury. He glances back up to Sansa through the crowd battling amidst the courtyard, eyes only for her.

He doesn't see the blade coming toward him until it's nearly too late, his instincts taking over, throwing himself left to avoid the blade. It slices his arm as he's mid-fall, before he slams hard into the stone, elbow first, teeth gnashing from the tumble, scrambling up, but not in time. His attacker comes down on him quickly, and Jon drags his injured arm up, sword in hand, blocking his swing, grunting from the force of it, his shoulders pushed back along the stone as he tries to balance his weight, find a foot hold to shove the man off of him.

Sansa screams at his peripheral. From his sprawl in the dirt, Jon glances out across the courtyard just in time to see Bran fall to a knee, a wide arc of blood spraying out from his thigh, a Baratheon soldier swinging his sword high above him. Bran clenches his eyes in pain, throwing himself into the soldier, tumbling to the ground with him. Sansa screams again, hands at her mouth, just steps away from them. Her brother cries out, gripping at his wounded thigh, but his opponent is already scrambling to his feet, already reaching for his sword, already stabbing straight through Bran's other leg and pinning him to the floor.

The scream that rips from the boy sears Jon all the way down to his bones, his gut curling painfully at the sound, a gasp breaking from him instantly, eyes tearing.

Sansa screeches, face blanking out in rage, rushing toward the soldier with all the force in her body, slamming into him and sending him off her brother.

"Get away from him!" she screams, voice piercing and jagged, like steel to stone, split right down the middle. She grabs for the blade in her brother's leg, pulling it free, face screwing tight with pain at the scream that tears through Bran's throat at the motion. She's crying instantly, tossing the bloodied blade aside, dropping down beside him, hands trembling at his wound. She doesn't notice the soldier scrambling back to his feet behind her.

Jon coughs an unheard warning into the dirt, her name muttered through clenched teeth, holding desperately against the soldier bearing down on him, their parried blades dangerously close to his throat. His sleeve is soaked through with blood, his other elbow screaming in pain, and it takes everything in him just to keep his arms from buckling.

Across the courtyard, the Baratheon soldier grabs Sansa by the hair, face screwed into a vicious look, dragging her back from Bran as she flails in his grip, her screams echoing sharply around them.

Panic ricochets through Jon at the sight, his eyes blowing wide. He nearly bites his tongue clean through, struggling against the howl lodged in his throat.

Bran shouts for her, arms outreaching, laying bloodied along the stone. Sansa kicks and kicks, clawing at her captor's hand in her hair as he drags her back, cursing her in his rage.

Jon struggles against his opponent, roaring in helplessness, glancing around the floor near him. He catches sight of a fallen helmet within reach, grasping wildly for it, his grip along his sword nearly slipping beneath the force of his attacker, before he's swinging the helmet back at the man, crashing it into his temple, sending him flying off of him. Jon gasps at the freedom, kicking him away, turning to bring his sword down on the man's throat with all his weight, just as he swings his own sword toward Jon's head, catching him along the temple with the hilt.

A spurt of blood splashes against Jon's face when he shoves his sword clean through the man's neck, his vision going painfully white as he rears back from the traded blow, sprawling back in the dirt, panting, urgency rushing through him. He blinks his vision back into focus, scrambling to his knees, bracing his sword in the dirt for leverage. His gaze searches for Sansa instantly.

Her captor hauls her up by the hair, ignoring her cries, shaking her violently. She stumbles against him, one hand gripping at his in her hair, her other coming down sharp on his cheek in a vehement slap. He spits after the hit, shaking it away easily, back-handing her instantly. She gasps from it, breathless, coughing, eyes blown wide.

Jon drags himself to his feet, stumbling toward them, vision inking black at the edges.

Bran reaches uselessly for the ends of Sansa's skirts from where he crawls along the floor, crying her name.

Her attacker pulls a dagger from his belt.

Jon's gut drops, his heart catching in his throat, his shout sounding hollow, blood seeping over his knuckles down, down, down the length of his sword and he's – he's –

He's not going to make it in time.

The man pulls his blade back.

Sansa screams in her thrashing.

Bran bellows through tears at her feet.

And Jon...

_Jon isn't going to make it in time._

Her howl rends the air, Bran bawling her name, and the man jerks back suddenly, his dagger clattering to the floor, Sansa falling back along the stone when his grip releases her hair, and Jon is awash with confusion, blinking furiously, still sprinting toward them, and then –

The man twists in his fall, turning so that Jon can see the arrow stuck straight between his eyes, before he's collapsing at Sansa's feet in a still heap.

Jon skids to a halt, breathless, head whipping to the source.

From the archway of the west courtyard entrance, Theon stands with bow raised, eyes fixed to Sansa, hand drawing back slowly from his release.

Jon hasn't the mind to think further on it, his desperation flooding him once more when he looks back to find Sansa bracing herself along the stone, her skirts in a bloodied array around her, gasping, crying, fumbling for Bran's hands as he reaches for her. His name is a choked off wail of relief in her throat when he nods at her, teeth grit valiantly against the pain as two Targaryen guards come to his aid, hands pressed to his wounds, and then she's turning frantically, eyes searching, wild, _needful._

They meet gazes instantly.

She stares at Jon, panting, cheeks tear-tracked. He stands bloody and ragged as he stares back.

The battle dims around them, the Targaryen guard beating back the Baratheon loyalists.

It takes only a moment. Only a moment of breathless stillness. Only a moment at the edge –

Before they are both tumbling over it.

" _Jon_ ," she wails, voice scraping along her throat. She hiccups through tears, face crumbling, hands shaking as they reach for him, blood-smeared.

He bolts toward her again, sword slipping – forgotten – to the stone floor, hands going for her as he drops beside her, knees throbbing, nearly falling into her with a crash, his whole body wrapping tight around her own, and his _wail –_

His wail.

He gathers her into his arms, gasping at her ear, "Sansa, Sansa, Sasna."

She coughs out a laugh – broken and tear-laced, hands fumbling for him, gripping at his shoulders, around his back, curling in fists along his sleeves, slipping up his cheeks in trembles.

"Jon," she pants out, tears flowing freely.

He fumbles for her face, her face, _that face_. Needs to see her. Needs to look at her. Draws her gaze to his with his touch at her jaw, his bloodied thumbs trailing tracks along her cheeks, brushing her hair back, eyes raking over her. Drinking her in. Crying. Laughing. Gasping.

"Sansa," he breathes out, the need crashing recklessly through him, hands tightening over her face, her eyes blinking up at his, tear-washed, bright and brilliant, her soft moan of relief splashing against his mouth.

Her face.

_Sansa_.

(Nothing else matters.)

She smiles up at him, tear-stained.

And then he's kissing her. All of her. Mouth and lips and teeth and breath. Arms wrapping round her, dragging her into him, holding her to his chest. She pushes into him fervently, her delicate fists clenched at his sleeves, opening her mouth to his, half-laughing, half-sobbing into the kiss. They fall into each other, frantic and grasping, the line of her fitted exactly to him, the heavy breath of his relief flooding her mouth, his lips pressing desperately and achingly against hers, sobbing at her mouth, trembling at the taste of her, kissing, kissing, kissing –

All of her.

Here.

All of her.

(Nothing else matters.)

He breaks from her, pants her name at her lips, dives in for another long, languid kiss. Can't stop touching her, grasping for her, tugging her closer. Can't be without her. _Can't be without her._

"Sansa," he whines at her mouth, nuzzling into her, ragged and spent and breathless. He braces a hand in her hair and settles her face along his neck, shakes at the unexpected exhale she presses to the skin of his throat, his name smothered upon her lips.

He starts to rock them, there on the floor, with her half-sprawled in his lap and his lips pressed to her hair. Sansa unwinds her shaking fists at his sleeves and reaches around his back instead, locking her arms around him. She sucks a sharp breath in, holds it tight, and in one fell swoop, lets it break from her.

She begins to well and truly cry.

"I've got you," he whispers at her ear, rocking her still.

She holds him tighter, only cries louder.

"I've got you," he swears into her hair, jaw clenching at the sounds coming from her. He steadies his breathing, curls his hand through her hair and shushes her softly, gently, with every aching breath in him, with every tender bone. "I've got you," he promises.

Sansa does not let him go.

After a moment, Jon glances up, catches sight of Theon staring at them from across the courtyard, his bow lowered, face grave.

Jon's lip trembles, his tears never ceasing, even as he blinks them away furiously. He nods to the Greyjoy, slow and appreciative, eyes never breaking from his, even when Sansa drags herself further into his lap, grips at him harshly, buries herself in his arms.

Theon nods back in shared solemnity, his eyes flitting to Sansa briefly, before returning to Jon. He watches the two of them, brow crinkling, chest heaving from his own battle exhaustion. And then a soft, understanding smile lights the edges of his lips.

Jon lets out a breath of relief, eyes slipping shut, the cacaphony of battle easing into a lull around them as the invaders are beaten back. But his world is already narrowed to a pinprick focus – her cries at his ear, her arms slung tight around him, the weight of her at his chest – _this._

"I've got you."

(Nothing else matters.)

* * *

By dawn, Stannis Baratheon sits chained in the dungeons beneath the Keep, his siege broken, the battle hard-won. In the aftermath directly following, Jon and Theon rush through the halls with Bran in their arms, taking him directly to Maester Gregor. Sansa bursts through the door, skirts bunched in her bloodied hands, offering half-formed apologies, courteous even in her desperation, before she's ushering the men toward a cot to set Bran atop, even as Maester Gregor splutters at their abrupt entrance.

It's only then that Jon hears of his father's condition.

'Gravely wounded,' Maester Gregor had said, directing his acolytes to care for Bran instead, bundling his tools together and then vacating the room instantly, rushing toward the King under the company of guards.

Jon stands stock still in the center of the room for many long moments, ignoring the rush of people around him, Bran's cries filtering out into a dull haze. Sansa stands a few steps away, eyes wide as they watch him, a sharp breath sucked through her teeth at the Maester's parting words. Theon helps the other maesters hold Bran down as they strip the ruined trousers from him and bind his wounds with fresh linen. But Jon still does not move.

Eventually, he turns his gaze to the door, to the solid, unassuming oak – watches the space where the maester has left.

He feels inexplicably calm. Quiet fills his bones, empties his mind, leaves him standing there like a husk.

' _Might not make it,'_ the maester had said.

Jon's face falls into his hands, his sob cradled in his blood-drenched palms. Just a single utterance, a shaky exhale, and then gone – swallowed back with a rush of grim realization.

(He does not see the hand Sansa stretches toward him, nor the way she retracts it, slowly, never letting it fall to his shoulder.)

They stand like this, in the wake of it all. Apart. And shaken.

But the realization – the realization is this:

He still doesn't regret it.

And maybe he would, if he were a better son. But he's not a better son, and Rhaegar is not a better father, and maybe this is who they've always been. Maybe this is why she will always be his first choice.

Maybe the only thing he can be now is a better husband.

Jon's hands slip away from his face. He breathes in. Breathes out.

Maybe this is the difference between wolves and dragons.

Hours later, when Bran is finally sedated, and his bandages have stopped bleeding through, when they have each had their own examination from the maesters, and when Sansa has stopped worrying her fingers at the ends of her sleeves, Jon looks to his wife in silent question.

She glances up at him from her chair at the edge of Bran's bed, seeming to understand. Her hand slips from her brother's as she stands, smoothing out her skirts with now-steady hands. She makes her way toward him silently, eyes red-rimmed and drawn down.

He makes to reach for her arm, stops, thinks better of it. He turns to the door and she follows wordlessly.

In the wake of their impassioned reunion, they dim into shadows of their affection – hesitant and cautious, skirting the edges of each other like wounded beasts. He still feels the hot expel of her shaking breath at his throat, and he is sure she still feels the quivering brace of his lips at her ear, and yet, silence is their comfort.

He does not ask for more. Not when she is alive. Not when she is safe.

He will not ask for more.

Jon escorts her to their chambers, changes his blood-splattered clothes, washes his face, and then leaves to see his father, all in silence. Sansa offers a conciliatory smile from her place at the vanity, and then the door is sliding shut behind him.

When he's before his father's door, his fist stalled halfway to knocking, the breath finally releases from his lungs, a swift wind, nearly sending him to his knees. He wipes at his eyes, teeth grit. A moment passes, his fist still held mid-air, and he is grateful for the silence of the guards posted beside the heavy door. Finally, he knocks.

It's Aegon who answers, a slow bruise purpling just under his left eye, marring his usual beauty. Jon blinks in surprise at the image, glancing down the length of him, looking for any other injuries, and finding none. Something of relief anchors in his chest, faint as it is.

"Is he...?" Jon can't seem to finish the thought.

Aegon purses his lips, a haggard look overtaking him, and Jon has never seen his brother so exhausted, so less than princely. He opens the door wider, enough for Jon to see their father lying in his bed, covers pulled up to his chin, concealing the wound where he took an axe to the chest. His face is beaded with sweat, his brow pinched tight in his fevered sleep, his silken, salt-white hair splayed out over the pillows. Beside the bed, Daenerys sits with her legs demurely crossed, a nail tapping along her armrest, a look of unrest gracing her features. She glances up at him, before standing to walk toward the two men.

"He's resting," she says, voice flat, a tightness to her jaw.

Aegon glances at his wife from the corner of his eye, his face a blank mask.

Jon opens his mouth, closes it. "Will he..." He swallows, tries again. "What did the maester say?"

Aegon does not speak, a hand coming up to rest at Daenerys' waist when she crosses her arms over her chest beside him, almost like comfort, and Jon is thrown by the intimacy of the touch.

"Tonight will tell," she says in answer.

Jon nods, because what else is there to do? He licks his lips, glances back up at the image of his father lying helpless and still atop the bed.

Daenerys clears her throat. "Lady Sansa?"

Jon looks back to his aunt. "Alive," he croaks out.

She nods, fingers flexing over her crossed arms.

It takes him a moment, and then he blinks, glances around the room from where he stands at the threshold, a flicker of fear kindling to life inside him. "Rhaenys?" he asks hesitantly.

Aegon sets his gaze on him then. "In her rooms," he says, his voice nearly scraping out of him.

Jon's chest tightens at the sound.

_What has he seen? What has he done? What has turned his brother to shadow?_

_Had he seen the axe that cut their father down? Was he there?_

_And did he blame him?_

Jon cannot answer these questions. Doesn't even know if he _wants_ them answered.

"I should see to her," Daenerys says quietly, arms slipping from their hold over her chest.

Aegon nods to her, his hand falling from her waist soft as snow. Jon does not miss the motion.

His aunt slips past him into the hall with a breathy farewell, her silver hair trailing behind her like clinging ghosts, and Jon has to look away, has to wipe again at his tearing eyes, clearing his throat.

Aegon cocks his head at Jon, never stepping aside, never inviting him in. The significance is not lost on him.

"You should rest, as well," Aegon says at length, the flicker of torchlight playing along his bruising cheek like the snap of dragon's wings. "There is nothing we can do but wait."

Jon swallows thickly, wiping a hand over his mouth. "Alright," he sighs out.

Aegon goes to close the door, stops, looks at him one last time. His violet gaze falls to the bandage round Jon's arm, stays there for a long, agonizing moment. His lips purse into a tight frown, shadow falling over half his face.

Jon wraps his hand around the wound, gripping his arm, unsure.

"I'm glad you returned to us, brother," Aegon says softly, eyes drifting down, hand curling over the edge of the door, and then sliding it closed.

Jon stands staring at it for many moments, his hand clenching over his wounded arm, teeth gritting.

It makes him...it makes him _angry_ , he finds. And he doesn't know why.

Angry and needy and half a breath away from dropping to the floor right there, bracing against his father's door and _wailing_.

Half a breath away from breaking.

Jon sucks a trembling breath in, presses his tongue to the roof of his mouth, searching for steadiness.

He turns swiftly and leaves the way he came.

_Nothing we can do._

But he is tired of being helpless.

When Jon opens the door to his chambers, Sansa is still sitting at the vanity, though she is washed and dressed in her night shift and robe. She meets his eyes through the mirror.

This...this, he can do.

Jon sighs heavily, closing the door behind him, before making his way to the bed and settling along the edge. His hands rest over his knees, his eyes closing on a shaking exhale.

This, he can do.

"I'm so...so sorry, Sansa."

She turns slightly toward him in her seat, one arm resting delicately along the back of her chair.

And then his hands are coming up to cradle his face, an exhaustive sigh bracing against his palms. "Gods, Sansa, I'm so sorry. For all of it. And I don't...I don't need your forgiveness, even though I want it like hell. I realized that, finally. I don't need it," he croaks out, gaze lifting from his hands to meet her gaze.

She narrows her eyes at him, standing slowly.

Jon shakes his head. "I didn't know it until I almost lost you. But I know it now. All I need is for you to be okay – to know that you're safe, and happy, and _alive_." His voice cracks, and he shakes it away, straightening in his seat, eyes intent on hers. "And if that's without me, then...then okay." The words lodge in his throat, raking their hooks along his tongue even as he spills them. And yet, nothing has ever felt so true. No words have ever meant so much.

Sansa presses her mouth into a thin line, watching him with unblinking eyes.

Jon rakes a hand through his hair, gaze shifting away, because to look at her – _to look at her_ \- he doesn't know if he can get the words out properly when she's staring at him like that. He clears his throat, starts again. "You can curse me, hit me, neglect me. Whatever you need. I won't ask for more. I won't ask for what you cannot give. And it was selfish of me to put that on you in the first place. It wasn't right. And I'm...I'm so sorry, Sansa, truly. I'm sorry it took... _this_ ," he says, hand sweeping out to encompass the keep, the attack, all of it, "I'm sorry it took something like this to make me realize what my omission cost me, what it cost _you_. But your life means more to me than any forgiveness or affection you could grant me. Because if that's the price of it, then I don't want it."

It empties out of him. Empties out of him like a howl in winter, like a stolen wind. Scrapes him clean from gut to gullet, lays him bare.

Flesh for the crows.

(It's not as painful as he'd expected. Not when he's still riding high on the blinding relief of knowing she'd made it out alive.)

Sansa studies him with an indecipherable look, head cocked slightly. Her hands bunch in the sides of her shift, throat bobbing.

Jon sighs, hands hanging over his knees. "So, tell me what you need, and I'll do it."

_Nothing we can do_.

Jon squares his jaw, breath thundering through his chest.

No more losing control, he promises.

No.

Now, it's time he _gave up_ control.

"If you need to leave, if you need to... leave _me_ ," he begins, swallowing tightly, voice wavering, "If you need to be with your family, return to Winterfell, if you need us _both_ to leave, if you need...I don't know...anything. Anything, Sansa, do you understand? Just...tell me what you need, please." He stills his shaking hands, clamps down on his quivering jaw. There is no help to the wetness that dots his eyes, though.

Sansa steps toward him, fists uncurling slowly, evenly, the fall of her copper hair over her shoulder something heady and riveting.

"Please," he whispers, eyes searching hers, "Tell me what you need."

He doesn't want to think about his father tonight. He doesn't want to think about Rhaenys, or Aegon, or Daenerys. He doesn't want anything at all right now. Nothing at all but her.

But what he wants and what she needs may never align again, and he...he's alright with that, in the end.

He can live with that.

He can live with anything, he finds, so long as she just...lives.

Jon watches her in the candlelight, throat bobbing, hands stiff over his thighs.

She steps toward him, eyes frost-lit, ire-blue.

"Sansa," he begins – but never gets to finish.

"How long?"

Jon looks at her, breathing deeply.

She steps into him, stopped just at his knees, the open slit of her robe drawing his gaze over her thin shift for only a moment before his eyes flick back up toward hers. He shakes his head. "I don't – "

"How long did you warm her bed?" The question is even and low.

He cannot help the taste of bile at the back of his tongue, the churning in his gut. "A... a year abouts, roughly" he croaks out honestly. He hasn't even the mind to lie to her. It's there – in her eyes. In the way she stares at him, demanding.

He would admit to everything if she asked him of it.

(The thought lights a terror somewhere inside him, the fierceness of it blinding, and yet, comforting in ways he has no words for.)

Sansa trails a hand to the tie of her robe, fingering the silk noncommittally.

Jon's eyes fix to the motion, a steady breath drawn through his nose.

"And once we were wed…?"

" _Never_ ," Jon hisses, moving to stand, the vehemence of his whisper thrumming through him.

Her hand at his shoulder halts him, pressing him back down easily. She could as well order him to 'sit' and he would obey, gladly, so enthralled is he by the eerie calmness of her stare.

Something flickers in her gaze, hesitant and barely there. A shadow. A quiver of her brows, a tremble at her lip.

Jon doesn't ever again want to see the look she gave him that morning he'd shattered the tentative trust between them, that look she'd worn when the truth of his sin had been laid bare.

His hands curl into fists atop his thighs, eyes steady on hers. "Not once," he promises, a note of desperation to the words, swallowed back on a shaky inhale, "And not ever again, I swear it."

Sansa simply watches him, copper hair glinting dark in the dim light – like the shadow of blood. It trails over her thin shoulder, taunting him. He remembers what that hair feels like between his rough fingers.

Another moment passes – long and drawn out. And Jon can barely breathe from the stillness of it, to have her so close, at the edge of his fingertips if he only reached, if he only dared to touch her.

But he keeps still, waiting for her, blunt nails digging crescent moons into his weathered palms, and then –

She moves.

Sansa brushes the robe from her shoulders, letting it fall to the floor in a flutter of silk. Jon watches the trail of it, before looking back up at her, brows furrowed. Her hands bunch in her shift at the thigh, dragging it up slightly to plant a knee beside him on the bed. Jon's eyes blow wide, his mouth going dry, hands rising in uncertainty, hesitant to follow the instinct to grab at her hips, her thighs, pale and inviting in the half-light. She drags her other knee up now, straddling him, hovering just over his lap, eyes never leaving his, hands still held tightly in the material at her thighs.

"Sansa – " It's a croak. A begging.

"You will not touch her again," she hisses out, eyes flashing, knuckles white where they grip her shift.

Jon's mouth parts, watching her, transfixed. He finds it in himself to nod.

Sansa swallows tightly, lowering herself, settling into his lap. Jon sucks a sharp breath through his teeth at the warm press of her to his cock, his breeches slowly tenting at the desire coiling low in his gut. She's clearly without her smallclothes.

Another croak leaves him, guttural and wretched. His hands flex in the air, hovering just over her thighs, practically _shaking_ with his need. But he will not touch her.

Sansa drops her shift, back arching somewhat when she takes his hands, eyes still fixed to his.

They stay staring at each other, breathless, aching. She licks her lips and Jon's chest heaves. Slowly – so slowly Jon thinks it's rather more painful then stillness – she brings his hands to her exposed thighs, fingers edging just under the hem of her shift. He can feel the violent tremble that racks her when she exhales.

"Only me," she says, voice breathy and firm.

"Gods, yes," he groans, hands sliding up her smooth thighs, fingers digging into the flesh, curling under her shift to drag her hips against the roll of his own at her heat.

Sansa's breath hitches and Jon's eyes flutter shut at the sensation, another long, low groan building in his chest.

Sansa plants her hands on his shoulders, anchoring herself as she gives a tentative grind herself, mouth parted while she watches him.

Eyes shifting open, he runs his hands up past her hips and along her back, cradling the arch of her, fisting in her shift.

A hot expel of her breath on his cheeks. His eyes fixed to her mouth. "Only me," she hisses out, hands gliding into his hair.

Jon braces his wet mouth to her throat, pressing his tongue to her pulse point and moaning at her trembling gasp. He's tugging at her shift then, frantic and mouthy at the hollow of her throat. "Only you," he breathes into her skin, breaking from her only long enough to yank the shift up and over her, tossing it aside. He sighs at the brush of her breasts to his chest, and then he's cupping them eagerly, thumbs flicking over her nipples as he laps at her throat, salt-tinged and slick. Her hands are already fumbling for his laces.

"She doesn't get to see you like this," she pants at his temple, and Jon can do very little but shake his head in acknowledgement, hot tongue still pressed to her skin, even as his hips rise to accommodate the shuffling of his breeches past his hips, Sansa lifting from his lap slightly to allow the motion. He's pulling her back to him instantly, biting off a grunt when he feels the slick press of her cunt against his cock. She grinds down on him again and Jon gasps, winded and delirious, hands gliding from her breasts to her hips to drag her back along his cock, slow and hard. He's panting at her collarbone, a low whine in the back of his throat, pumping up toward the sodden wet heat of her like a green boy.

"Fuck, Sansa, let me – let me just – _fuck_ …" He bites off another groan when she reaches down and wraps a delicate hand around his length, setting the tip of him just at her entrance, thighs tightening around his hips as though to hold him to her, peeling her chest from his just enough to look at him, to catch his dark, feverish gaze with her own.

He wants to claw her back to him, to slam his hips up into hers and take her. Or let her take him. To drown in her. To lose himself in the overwhelming heat of her. To burn in her – wholly and recklessly.

Something in Sansa's gaze keeps him rooted, eyes fixed to hers, breathless and aching and trembling in her hold, mouth braced just below hers. He stares at her, helpless, chest tight and lungs clenching, hard and desperate and _hungry_.

She slides slowly down onto him, never looking away, taking him into her heat in one single, purposeful glide.

Jon's rumbling groan breaks against her mouth, his fingers digging into her hips so hard he knows there'll be bruises, marks of his touch, remnants of their frantic, vicious fuck. The thought has him momentarily feral with the lust, his vison going white for a single, mindless breath.

"She doesn't get to have you like this," Sansa promises darkly, tongue darting out to wet her lips on a heated exhale.

Jon blinks at her, at the note of possession lining her voice. And then his hand is winding around the back of her neck and then he's dragging her head down to his and then he's _kissing_ her but it's not a kiss at all. It's a clashing of teeth, an open, filthy swipe of tongues, the wide slant of his mouth working over hers as he takes and takes and takes, licking into her, swallowing her moans, lapping up that wet, sodden heat of her – like that sweet taste between her thighs.

And he wonders suddenly why they've never done this before.

A kiss.

To share breath, and taste, and heat. To drink. To drown.

Jon breaks from her, panting, when she begins to move faster over his cock, grinding her hips into his almost painfully, savagely.

"Jon," she moans, the sound bit off at the tongue, fingers splaying over the back of his neck, holding him to her.

"Oh fuck, Sansa, just like that," Jon urges, one hand steady on her hip, guiding her atop him, his other still tangled in her hair. His mouth brushes against hers as they jostle in their fucking, skin slapping between them. "Fuck, but you look so good like that," he groans, licking at her mouth, "riding my cock."

She cries out softly, nails digging along his neck. He drags her hips back into his harshly, fucking her harder.

"Gods, Sansa, only you. Only you and that tight, wet cunt, that – fuck – so fucking – gods, what you do to me, what you make me – nngh – I can't…I can't – " And he's going to cum, he knows, brutal and swift and with his self-control ripped to shreds right there beneath her quaking thighs. His mouth catches along hers amidst their violent fucking, his hand sliding between them to rub furiously at her nub. She bites off a shriek, jolting in his arms. "I don't want anybody else but you," he growls at her mouth, biting into her bottom lip, sucking it between his teeth, moaning with it, "Sansa, nngh, _Sansa_ – gods, so fucking _wet_ for me – " A tight hiss, cock buried in her.

Her own teeth snag at his lip. She bites back. Always has.

" _Fuck,_ Sansa," he groans, half-snarl, half-whine, thrusting up into her as he feels her clench around him, his thumb rubbing out a devasting orgasm at her clit, a sharp breath drawn through her lungs before it's shattering the air around them, her hoarse cry drowning out his own lung-quaking groan when he spills inside her, pumping hot and frenzied into her, letting her ride him out, hands grasped tightly at his neck, thighs clenched around him, chest heaving against his, before easing into a heady lull – grinding slow and hard and with a tingling, heavy-limbed relief, until she slumps in his arms completely, mouth panting at his, nails curling into his hair, drawing a low, guttural sound from his worn throat.

"Sansa – "

"Promise me," she says now – voice unexpectedly small and quaking. Her eyes wet instantly.

Jon can still taste her there along his tongue. He licks his lips, swallows thickly, braces a hand at her neck, thumb edging along her jaw.

"Only you," he swears, the words working their way through his chest until his lungs are stained with them. "You, you, you," he pants, kissing her. Again. And again. Wet and languid and insatiable. Drinking.

Drowning.

She clutches him back, her sob choked off by his ravenous tongue.

_You_ –

Only.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooooo, I love writing action/battle scenes (if you couldn't tell), but I tried to limit myself to what was integral to the narrative. So yeah, sorry if you're disappointed I didn't follow the entire battle, but believe me, it would have stalled out the story and thrown the pace off. What's important is here, and it sets the foundation for what's to come. But hey, I didn't leave you on another cliff hanger, right?
> 
> And now, Jon and Sansa can finally sit down and have a much-needed conversation.


	14. A Kind of Courage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “She brushes a thumb along his jaw, lets her courage take her – lets it send her hurtling toward him.” - Jon and Sansa. Like the curve of the horizon, when the moon breaks from beneath its bow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a heads-up that I've suffered a bit of a health setback, and I might be slowing down a bit (I say this but hey, writing this story is kind of addictive to me at this point, haha.) If you're curious at all, you can read my tumblr post about it [here](https://orangeflavoryawp.tumblr.com/post/630806645280292864/for-readers-of-from-instep-to-heel). But also, the next three chapters after this one, which I think will be the last, are going to be back to back conflict and I felt I should spare you the wait between those chapters, and instead, try to have them all mostly written so I can post them more closely together.
> 
> This chapter seemed like a perfect place to give you guys a bit of a breather, a jumping off point for the final act, and some much needed closure for Jon and Sansa.
> 
> On an unrelated note, back by popular demand is Jon's Dirty Mouth. Cake for everyone!

Disclaimer: I own nothing, I make no money.

From Instep to Heel

Chapter Fourteen: A Kind of Courage

 _"She brushes a thumb along his jaw, lets her courage take her – lets it send her hurtling toward him."_ \- Jon and Sansa. Like the curve of the horizon, when the moon breaks from beneath its bow.

* * *

When Sansa wakes, it's to the image of her sleeping husband beside her. She feels the warmth of his arm slung around her waist, watches the parted seam of his lips as he breathes. She trails her fingers down the length of his jaw, watching him, chest tightening inexplicably.

Memories from the day before come rushing back.

She remembers the blinding relief she'd felt when she'd laid eyes on him amidst that bloody courtyard, the way her body had nearly bolted toward him of its own accord, the way his name had risen from her lungs so desperately, so dearly.

How he held her as she cried. How he kissed her.

 _How he kissed her_.

Sansa draws her lip between her teeth, a sigh escaping her.

How she had been the only thing he could look at. The only thing.

Her hand slips from his face, curling back at her chest.

He moans softly at the loss, and Sansa snaps her eyes back to his face, watching as he slowly blinks awake.

"Mm," he hums out, a gruff sound caught in his throat, eyes focusing on her. A soft smile flickers at the edge of his lips.

Sansa dips her head. "Good morning."

"Morning," he says in answer, voice sleep-rough.

She shuffles closer to him, closing her eyes on an inhale, breathing him in. The scent of him – enveloping.

Jon's arm shifts at her ribs, his hand settling along her side, sliding up the curve of her waist in greeting, before gliding down gently toward her hip. "Did you sleep well?"

Sansa blinks her eyes open to the wide expanse of his chest, sighing again. She offers an answering hum.

Jon reaches around her, drawing her closer. His thumb draws lazy circles over the base of her spine. "Talk to me." He clears his throat, shaking the grogginess away.

She looks up at him, catches his grey gaze in her own uncertain one. "I want to visit Bran," she says.

He nods. "I know."

Sansa exhales harshly, brows drawing down. "I just...I just keep thinking about it. All that blood. Gods, but the blood, Jon."

His hand tightens over the small of her back, pressing her more firmly into him. "I know," he says, lips planted at her brow, lingering there for an infinite moment.

Her fist unfurls at her breast, curling tentatively toward his chest instead. She feels the soft wind of his exhale beneath her palm when he pulls away.

"But he's going to be alright."

"What if he's not?" She blinks wildly up at him.

Jon's gaze is firm, never looking away. "Sansa, he's in good hands. He's made it through the worst of it already. Your brother's a survivor, a warrior. He'll be alright."

"But what if he...if he can never walk again?"

Jon frowns at the words, brows drawn down.

Sansa shakes her head, eyes fixing to the way her hand splays over his chest. "He's always wanted to be a knight. He's _always_ wanted it. And even if he walks again, the chances of him wielding a blade..." She trails off, eyes wet suddenly. She blinks it away. "The gods would be too cruel if they took this from him."

"Aye, they would be," he agrees, voice low. His thumb returns to drawing comforting circles along her skin. "But it is too early to tell."

She sighs, aggravation staining her voice. "I know. I _know_ that but I...gods, if only I had...I don't know. Maybe if I had been Arya, this could have all been different. Maybe I could have protected him, too. Maybe I could have saved him." Her voice goes hollow, throat clenching over the words. "Maybe if I hadn't been the useless sister."

Jon's frown harshens, his traces stilling at her back. He exhales disbelievingly at her lips, winding his hand up her back, bracing along the nape of her neck, so he can tilt her head back just slightly, just enough to meet her eyes. He licks his lips, an incredulous scoff leaving him. "Sansa, I have never _seen_ someone so brave," he says earnestly, eyes flicking between hers.

The breath stills in her chest, mouth parting.

"Even knowing the risk, you went looking for him. You never abandoned him. You never left his side."

Sansa pulls a slow, uneven breath through her lungs, staring at him.

Jon's hand tangles in her hair, bracing her against him. "You never left him, Sansa," he breathes lowly.

She closes her eyes at the words, a trembling hand reaching for his wrist. "And yet he _still_ almost died."

"Almost," Jon agrees, forehead pressing to hers. "But not quite. Because of _you_."

She blinks up at him at that, eyes narrowing in confusion.

Jon's hand slips around her neck, cradling her jaw. He smiles fondly at her. "When that soldier had him pinned through the leg, I saw you. I saw the way you threw yourself at him. The way you protected your brother. Fierce as any wolf." His thumb slides along her cheek gently– an anchor. He frowns at the slight swelling just beneath his palm, a thrum of anger visibly flashing through his eyes, and Sansa knows, instinctively, that had Theon not shot the man who'd backhanded her, Jon would have torn him apart with his bare hands. The thought sends a shiver through her, though not an altogether unpleasant one.

Her voice lodges in her throat, remembering the assault, the tears beading at the corners of her eyes now. "That was blind rage," she says on a broken chuckle.

"Aye, and reckless, too," he says, face growing somber. "If you had – gods, Sansa, if I had lost you – " He can't finish the words, swallowing them down instead. He clears his throat, seeming to settle the unease, a hesitant smile branching out across his face. "But I suppose I should expect nothing less."

She presses her lips into a thin line, watching him.

His thumb grazes across her skin again, careful of her slow-blooming bruise, his eyes softening on her. "That wasn't Arya who saved him. That wasn't me, or Theon, or anyone else. That was you. Sansa. That was you."

Her lip quivers, her grip tightening over his wrist.

"I have never been so proud of you," he says on an ardent whisper, pressing a swift, close-mouthed kiss to her lips, lingering there for a moment, pressed against her so intimately.

She sighs into the embrace, a laugh breaking from her lips when they part – light and uncontrollable. They press their foreheads together.

"I remembered," she begins, "All at once I remembered what you told me back at Winterfell, when I held your sword – how it means to protect what you love. And I... I wanted to protect what I loved. That's all that was in my head. All that I knew."

Jon's hand slips from her cheek when she releases his wrist, gliding down her arm to settle back at the curve of her waist.

She cocks her head at him. "How did you know that's what I'd do?"

His smile quirks at her question. "The lone wolf dies," he tells her.

Sansa beams at him, breathless. "But the pack survives," she says in answer.

Jon nods. "And just as you couldn't leave him, I could never have left you."

Sansa's smile wilts at the edges, a nervous thrum of her fingers lighting along his chest. "The king..." she begins, unsure how to finish.

Jon sighs, curving his hand around to the small of her back once more, a measure of comfort for the both of them. He shakes his head. "I don't know."

"Was he... did he look so terrible?"

A gruff sound brews in Jon's throat.

Sansa presses into him. "I'm so sorry."

He shakes his head. "If he falls – if he dies – " His voice catches. "Aegon will be king. And I don't...I don't know after that."

"What do you mean?"

Sighing, Jon shifts atop the bed, an unease overtaking him. "I have to tell you something."

Sansa's brows furrow, her eyes riveted to his.

His hand curls at her back, hesitant. "I left my father. He ordered me to accompany him and his Kingsguard, sent Aegon to the Maidenvault to protect Daenerys and Rhaenys, and you. But I couldn't do it. So I left him. For you. And now he's...he's..." Jon swallows thickly, his hand shifting, gripping at her hip now, a tremble racking through him.

A soft hushing sound escapes her mouth, her fingers trailing up his chest to whisper over his lips. "Jon, I'm so sorry. I'm so – "

"No, you don't understand," he chokes out, interrupting her. "You don't understand because I'd... I'd do it again."

She silences in surprise.

His grip is desperate at her hip. "I'd make the same choice every time, even knowing the consequences." He nods, eyes flicking between hers. "I'd do it again, Sansa. Even if it meant losing him." His face crumples at the words, a lance of pain shifting across his features.

She stares up at him with wide eyes, her fingers stilled at his lips. "Jon..."

"He's my father," he sobs out suddenly, eyes drifting down, unable to keep her gaze. "He's my _father_ , Sansa. The only one I'll ever have, and I don't... I don't want him to die, gods, but I don't want him to die. And I never thought – fuck – I mean, I never thought that this is how it'd happen. I never thought I could love someone and resent them in equal measure, but I do. I do, Sansa. This – this knot inside me," he grits out, tears at the corners of his eyes, "I don't know how to undo it. I don't know how to be okay with this, but I have to be. I _will_ be. Because I think I can survive anything, if only you're beside me." His words end on a choke, his gaze finally lifting back to hers. "And I know I don't deserve that but I – "

"No, Jon, no," she hushes, her touch gliding up his jaw, his beard scratching at her palm. "Please don't think that," she croaks out.

Please, no. After everything. After _everything_.

It would be a lie to say her resentment had simmered away into nothing, that she wasn't still stitching closed that hole Rhaenys and Jon's words had torn into her, that she wasn't tangled up in fear even now.

But he'd come for her. Against an army. Against the king. Against his family.

He'd come for her.

Against everything.

(And the part of her that had thrown herself into his arms, wailed in his comforting embrace, curled against him feverishly, desperately, _brokenly_ \- that part of her recognizes what it took of him to put her above all else.

Even above his own life.)

No, maybe love isn't enough. Maybe it never will be. But it opens the door to what _must_ be enough – enough to save them, at least, she thinks.

Trust. Vulnerability. Courage.

The kind of courage that lays you bare before another person.

And the kind that does not look away in turn.

Jon sucks a slow, steadying breath in when she cradles his cheek in her palm. He closes his eyes, exhales raggedly, opens them once more.

They stay staring at each other for long moments, curled together atop the sheets, Sansa's gaze flicking between his, and suddenly, she knows what words she needs.

"Jon," she begins, lip caught between her teeth. "There's something else."

She knows the words because she's said them in her dreams over and over and over again.

She knows the words because they've stained her lips with yearning so often these days.

She knows the words because she's found her courage now, too.

Sansa takes a breath, slips her hand from his face. And then it rakes from her like a breath of spring. "I'm with child."

Jon blinks at her. His mouth parts, his brows furrowing. He glances down to her stomach, blinks again.

She cannot stifle the laugh that builds along her tongue. "Jon," she says, "I'm with child." The words are surer this time, not so breathless. A certainty. A promise.

Jon stays staring at her stomach.

Her breath hitches at the look, a stillness overtaking her, and then slowly, so slowly it's almost painful, she feels his hand slip from her hip, treading hesitantly toward her belly, his fingertips grazing along the skin in a reverence that almost makes her cry.

"Jon," she says, tongue sticking in her mouth, unable to look away from him.

A wavering breath leaves him, his hand settling more firmly along her stomach now, eyes fixed to the motion. "You're..." It's a tremulous draw of air that stalls the words in his throat, and she very nearly feels the ripple of his tremble from his hand along her skin.

"Yes," she whispers in the space between them, hand going for his wrist, wrapping around it tenderly.

His face screws up into something painful, a single, disbelieving exhale leaving him, rattling him. His fingers curl more surely over the imperceptible curve of her stomach, his eyes wetting when a broken laugh tears from him. "Thank you," he chokes out, voice cracking.

Sansa's chest constricts at the sound, tears beading at the corners of her eyes instantly.

He looks up at her again, finally. "Thank you," he rasps out, blinking the tears away, and then he's leaning in, bracing his mouth to hers.

She gasps at the urgency in him, at the fragility of his touch, even still – at the way he cradles her like she is something precious, something _unspeakably_ precious. She sobs into the kiss, her fingers winding around his wrist, keeping his hand braced to her stomach, slanting her mouth over his in a heady, needful haze, feeling the wetness that lines his face, the tears already making their tracks, and she draws back with a shuddering breath, a laugh splashed against his lips, and then he's bundling her into his arms, careful of the way he presses into her, and she wants to sob again for the thought of it, sighing as his hand glides up her back, winding into her hair, his fervent whispers unfurling at her temple.

"Thank you, Sansa," he chokes out. "Gods, just... thank you." His hand is trembling and reverent at the nape of her neck. "Thank you for bringing this into my world," he manages through a watery laugh.

She grips at him, arm winding around his back, light and breathless and laughing – _laughing_ , gods, like she'd forgotten how.

Like she'd never known such happiness, nor would again.

Her vision blurs with tears.

Jon pulls from her then, a swift intake of breath halting her laugh, his eyes snapping back down to her stomach when he reaches for it, careful and alarmed and nearly vibrating in his own skin. "When did you – Sansa, when did you know? In the attack, did you...?" He clenches his jaw, a steely vehemence overtaking him when he looks back up at her.

She only nods, voice lodged in her throat.

"Fuck, Sansa, that man – if that man had – " His breathing deepens, his eyes narrowing quickly when they shift back down to her stomach, the gentleness in his touch a stark contract to the heavy rage that sends his voice to quaking. "I would have ripped him limb from limb," he growls out slowly, determinedly.

A tremble racks through her, gut coiling tight beneath his palm. "Jon," she urges.

He meets her eyes, dark and unblinking.

She sucks a breath in at the image, licking her lips. "Jon, I'm alright. The maesters assured me. Our babe is fine." She lays her hand over his.

He gentles at the touch, the line of his brows smoothing out with her whispered promise. "Our babe," he repeats, wonderous at the sound.

She rubs a thumb along his rough knuckles, smiling at him. "I wasn't sure, not until we returned from Winterfell and I saw the maester."

Jon nods, throat constricting, understanding flooding his features. "And then we..."

"Yes," Sansa says, smile falling at the reminder. She looks down, eyes settling along the flex of his throat instead. "I didn't... I didn't know how to tell you. Or even if I _wanted_ to. And I... I _had_ , of course, at first. I had wanted to, but on my own terms, because it was something of _ours_ , something joyous, something to be celebrated, not dreaded."

Jon stays quiet, watching her, his hand slipping loosely from her stomach to settle back along her waist. His lips thin into a tight line.

Sansa shakes her head. "But then I learned of you and Rhaenys, and I... Jon, my head was whirling. You can't understand. You can't understand how alone I felt."

"Sansa..." His voice is low and rough, regret lining his words.

"No," she says, meeting his gaze once more, fervent now. "No, Jon, I need you to understand. Because I had nowhere to turn. No one to confide in. And even if I'd wanted to leave, even for a time, just to... to get some space, to come to terms, I couldn't. Not with this babe in my belly," she rasps out, her hand going to her stomach. "Not with our child being the only viable Targaryen lineage, not with knowing what that would mean to your father, who, I assure you, would have had no qualms about keeping me hostage in this keep."

Jon winces at the words, probably because he recognizes the truth in them. And even while it hurts her to say these things to him, now, when his father may be bleeding out even this very moment, she understands that these are things that _must_ be said. They must be said, or they will fester and rot inside her, grow to resentment. They must be said, or she will grow as bitter as the weirwood's leaves are red.

And she knows she deserves better than that.

Sansa takes a steadying breath, her voice hitching slightly, but she clears it away easily, focuses on the warmth beneath her palm. "Daenerys knows."

Jon's eyes narrow in confusion, his mouth open, but she doesn't stop.

"Daenerys knows about the babe, and that means Aegon may already know as well, perhaps even the king. I do not know. But even if they don't yet, do you think she would stay silent were I to attempt leaving? No. There was no returning to Winterfell, to my home, not without risking countless lives in the process. My father would not have suffered me a hostage," she grits out, shaking her head. "So no, I couldn't leave. Which meant I had to stay right here, with you, and Rhaenys, and all of this... this sickness between us. I had to stay right here, knowing what you kept from me, knowing what she wants from you, and I... I had _nowhere to go, Jon_. Do you understand? Gods, but I could barely _breathe_ for the suffocation of it," she cries, hand leaving her stomach to cover her face instead, a ragged breath expelled into her palm, her eyes closing over the tears.

Jon's hand tightens on her hip, the stiffness of his unease palpable between them, but he will not venture further, he will not embrace her, not like this, with these words between them, and she is grateful beyond measure. For this space he grants her now, this freedom – this chance to breathe that had been denied her from the moment she came upon the two of them that disastrous morning.

"That helplessness," she begins again, voice shaking, hand drawn down from her face, "That helplessness and frustration – it tainted any forgiveness I had in my heart for you. Because it felt like I had no choice in it, like I was cornered into it. And I think that's what hurt the worst of all." She sighs as the words leave her, swallowing tightly, unable, or unwilling, to stem the tears.

Jon's face is a visage of pain, his jaw clenched tight, brows drown down over dark eyes. He dips his head, words tight as they leave him. "I didn't understand," he breathes out, and then shakes his head, angered at his own response.

"I know that," she says, wiping at her cheeks, drawing a steadying breath in. "I know that, Jon."

"I never meant to make you feel like that," he manages through clenched teeth, a sob caught in his throat. "Gods, but I didn't understand. And it's such a stupid fucking excuse, I _know that_ , but I... I just didn't understand and I'm... I'm so sorry, Sansa."

A sudden sureness overtakes her, her hand returning to his chest as she blinks back the tears, drags the words out from her parched throat. "You asked me what I needed."

Jon stills, blinking at her. His frown harshens, his eyes intent on hers,

She licks her lips. "I need you to be okay if I'm... if I'm not okay. With this. With Rhaenys. If I need time. Seeing her every day, knowing what she did to you, what you hid from me, living in this place with her, knowing how she _still_ feels about you – I don't know that I'm going to be okay with that for a long, long time." She swallows thickly, her tongue heavy as she continues. "I need you to be patient with me. I need you to let me feel this – let me work through this – on my own terms. I need you to be understanding when I can't hold back. And I need you to promise you won't hold back either."

Jon curls his hand at her waist, his gaze never leaving hers. "I promise," he gets out raggedly. "We'll figure something out. I won't let her near you. We'll leave, or we'll...we'll find another way. I won't let you live like that, I promise."

Her hand returns to his face. "I want to make this work. And this only works if we can trust each other – if we _talk_ about these things, Jon." Her mouth parts, her chest heaving with the weight of it. She feels the scratch of his beard along her fingertips, lets it ground her. "I want to share this life with you, I do. And I will fight for it. I promise, Jon," she swears, voice hitching, tear-laced, "I will _fight for it_ , you know I will. Because I know now that you're fighting just as hard."

Jon clenches his jaw, eyes riveted to hers, an unsteady breath filling his lungs. "I have even more reason to fight now," he promises, the hand at her waist edging gently over her stomach once more, fingertips grazing the bare flesh.

Sansa heaves a worn sigh, settling in on herself. "We have to tell your father. And Aegon."

Jon's eyes narrow so sharply she almost misses it.

She curves her hand around his jaw, tender and infinite. "We can give him no doubt that we are loyal to the crown. We must share all our cards. I know enough to know that Stannis had help from the inside, and we must give no impression of falsity, no hint of deceit. His Grace will already be questioning Lord Viserys, but you've said once yourself, your uncle is not the mastermind he pretends to be. If he had a hand in this, it was not of his own devices. Which means we have reason to suspect another. And hiding this pregnancy will not endear us to your father. It will not protect us, or the babe."

Jon looks down at the hand he has splayed over her stomach, his jaw working. "If my father..." He swallows back the quake in his voice, heaving a sigh. "If he dies," he begins, voice strained, "Aegon will have to name an heir upon his acceptance of the crown. And with no child of his own..."

"He will have to name you," Sansa finishes for him, thumb tracing over his cheekbone.

Jon shakes his head, an incredulous breath leaving him.

Sansa purses her lips. "Or do you think he will trust Viserys now, after such a siege, to name him his heir?"

Jon closes his eyes, a frown marring his features. "I'm a bastard, Sansa."

" _Legitimized_ ," she presses.

Jon opens his eyes to her. "Aegon would never trust me with his inheritance."

"Would he trust Viserys?"

Jon silences at that.

Sansa sighs, her hand slipping from his cheek to anchor at his chest. "He is without options. He will name you, Jon. He will."

Jon is stiff and silent before her, and it softens her – to look at him. To watch the indecision on his face, the doubt. It carves something tender and enduring out of her. "He will not want to," he says.

"It is not a matter of 'want'."

Jon stares at her – hard. Maybe because he knows it just as well – perhaps even better. "He won't name me if he knows we're expecting. It's a threat to his reign."

"He will find out sooner or later. And he certainly won't name you if we're seen to be hiding it from him."

Jon pauses at that, eyes drifting over her shoulder in thought.

Sansa thrums her fingers along his chest in comfort, her voice soft and steady. "What do you want?"

Jon looks at her, his hand curving low around her back.

She blinks up at him, mouth parting. "Do you want the crown?"

Jon squares his jaw, his hand bracing her against him. "I want you to be safe," he says.

A soft, barely-there smile tugs at her lips. "It may mean the same thing now," she whispers in answer, regretfully.

Jon's brows furrow at the words, his body pressing into hers. "I've never sought the throne," he urges.

"No," she agrees, "But power means safety, here in the capital. Your family taught me that."

Jon considers her a moment longer. "If Aegon hopes for an heir of his own, he may have to set aside Daenerys."

Sansa blinks at him. "You think he will do that?"

Jon shrugs a shoulder, a thoughtful look crossing his face. "I might have, once. But I don't know now. He's been..." He trails off, shaking his head. "He's more loyal to Daenerys than I'd previously thought. And she wouldn't take to being set aside so easily."

"Then they have to keep trying for an heir, or the title will rest on you," she says. "It's not a great leap to say so."

Jon sighs, nodding. "I know that, I do. But I... I just..."

Sansa peers up into his face, eyes softening on his. She thinks of the way he'd emptied himself before her, the way he'd held her, shaking, crying his need, his words lancing through her in a way no outward wound has ever marred her. "You're not dirty," she says on a choked breath, mouth set to a firm line.

Jon's eyes widen at her words, recognition flashing through his gaze.

She presses her hand over his heart, fits her palm to the beat of him. "You're not wrong," she continues, voice hoarse. "You are _not_ the kind of bastard they've always told you you were."

Jon's mouth parts, brows furrowing at her words, the affirmation in them. He sighs out unevenly, leaning toward her, dragging her into him, burying his face in her neck, his mouth pressed to her hair. "Sansa," he breathes out at her ear, ardent and pleading all at once.

Her hand slips up his chest, curling around the nape of his neck, holding him to her. The pressure of her stomach braced against him lights something heady inside her, his hand anchoring at her back. "I've got you," she says, a watery smile breaking across her lips at the familiar words, how inexplicably _right_ they are on her lips.

Jon chuckles disbelievingly at her temple, grip tightening on her, an aching fondness to the touch that has her curving sharply around him, fitting herself to the form of him, setting her lines and curves to his own, turning two into one.

Without undoing them each.

"I've got you," she says, smiling into his hair.

Jon pulls back slightly, just enough to look at her, so close, his breath fanning her lips. "Sansa," he manages on a rasp, eyes flicking between hers, "I promise, I will never let you feel trapped again. I will never let you feel so scared that you cannot share something like this with me," he says urgently.

She nods, blinking back the wetness at her eyes. "And I promise, I will do the same."

Jon sighs at her mouth, a rumble in his chest, his gaze falling to her lips.

A breathless smile etches across Sansa's face, sheepish and trembling. "I suppose we're both rather terrible at confessions," she laughs.

Jon chuckles at her, his gaze flitting back up to her eyes. "We should work on that," he says with a roguish smile.

Sansa releases a shuddering breath, steadying herself for her coming words. "But you know, you weren't wrong," she whispers in the space between them.

He raises a brow at her, questioning. His hand has returned to its lazy circles at the base of her spine, comforting and possessive all at once. She nearly mewls beneath the touch.

Sansa brushes the curls from his cheek, bracing her hand along his neck. She grants him a tremulous smile. "When you said that I loved you."

Jon's hand stills at her back, his breath hitching.

She brushes a thumb along his jaw, lets her courage take her – lets it send her hurtling toward him.

(Wolves are not soft-mouthed things, after all.)

"And you love me, too," she says, even and sure, eyes never leaving his.

Jon's chest heaves, his mouth parting at her own, his hand slinking up to cup her face. They hold each other there, hands to jaws, ready to drink the drowning, cradling each other's trembles with steadfast fingers.

(For Sansa is not a soft-mouthed thing either.)

"You love me, too," she says again, the breath raking from her.

"I do," he says – instantly. His hand flexes at her cheek. "I do, I do, I do," he groans at her mouth, pressing his lips to hers, fervent and breathless.

She opens to him.

"I do," he pants against her lips, gathering her in his arms.

"Jon," she gasps, swallowing his tremulous moan.

"I do," he rakes out, kissing her, touching her, fumbling for closeness.

Sansa arches at his touch, tugging his face to hers, sighing at the desperate press of his tongue. She doesn't think she will ever grow tired of Jon's kisses, of the reckless, urgent flush of his tongue against hers, the needy way he slants his mouth over hers, the way he pants when he breaks from her reluctantly, his low moan painting her lips.

She curls around him, keening at the soft nip he gives her lips. "Jon, I want you," she pants out.

A growl brews in his chest, his hand disentangling from her hair to slip down to her hip instead, kneading the flesh there.

She mewls at the touch, arching against him. " _Please_."

A heavy breath breaks from him, his head dropping to her shoulder, even as he bucks against her, his growing hardness pressing into her thigh. "Sansa, are you...is the babe...?"

She laughs then, sudden and bright, her hand curling through his hair, fond and needy all at once. "I'm pregnant, Jon, not porcelain," she chides.

He chuckles into the skin of her shoulder, pulling back slightly, eyes meeting hers. "No, not porcelain," he agrees lowly, reverently. His eyes rake over her face. "More like steel," he breathes out.

She laughs, gripping him to her, and she's only mildly taken aback by the fierce way he kisses her then, his hand slipping to her thigh, hitching it over his hip, grinding into her with a rumbling groan.

Her chest tightens at the sound, fingers fumbling in his hair, dragging his mouth into hers, licking and sucking, drawing desolate, quaking moans from him.

Jon breaks from her suddenly, his hand cupping her jaw once more, fingers tight over her cheek, his voice rough as it paints her lips. "Tell me what you want," he demands, chest heaving against hers.

Sansa sags against him at the breathy command, mouth parting.

He watches the motion with dark eyes, his thumb tracing her bottom lip, sucking a thin breath through his teeth when she dips her tongue out to meet it.

He grinds into her, cursing beneath his breath, gripping at her jaw. "Tell me what you want, Sansa," he urges, eyes fixed to the bow of her mouth.

The words spring forth inside her, frothing along her tongue, pushing for air. "Your mouth," she gets out on a sharp inhale.

A wolfish grin breaks across his face, his head dipping to hers. He licks up her lips, a single, slow swipe, groaning at the way she parts her mouth for him, her own tongue darting out to meet his.

"Here?" he asks lowly, slanting his mouth over hers, taking his fill.

Sansa sighs at the kiss, open-mouthed and indulgent, her gut curling tightly, insistent. She moans with her impatience.

Jon pulls from her slowly, and she can feel his smile still braced to her lips.

Her nails dig along the nape of his neck, a huff of air leaving her. "Jon," she urges.

He dips his mouth to her throat, teeth pinching over the flesh there, a quick, unexpected bite. She yelps at the sensation, tugging him into her reflexively.

"Here?" he asks again, tongue laving over the spot, drawing a heady moan from her, his tongue hot and wet over her thrumming pulse.

She tugs at his hair. "Jon, stop teasing," she demands, hips undulating against him.

His hand slips to her breast, cupping her suddenly, and she arches at the touch, his thumb flicking over her nipple. She shudders, moaning lowly.

"Is this where you want my mouth?" he asks into her collarbone, nipping softly, a slow suck following the bite, and she gasps at the sensation, clawing at him, pressing herself against him, grinding her cunt along the throbbing length of him.

"Fuck, Jon," she grinds out, eyes squeezing shut.

He palms at her breast, a ragged breath released at her chest. "Tell me," he growls out.

Sansa throws her head back, grinding wantonly against him. "My cunt," she gasps out. "Fuck, Jon, but I want your mouth on my cunt," she grits between clenched teeth, hardly enough restraint left in her to regret the things he's got her saying now, as she reaches for his hand at her breast and drags it down between her legs forcefully, jolting at the sudden, rough curl of his fingers inside her as he hauls her into him, his low groan splashing across her chest.

"Nngh, gods Sansa, yes – so fucking wet for me already, so fucking - " he pants out, tongue darting out to swipe along her collar bone. "Is that what you want, hmm? My tongue buried in your soaking cunt?"

"Yes," she grinds out, hips stuttering at the pump of his fingers inside her. "Yes, I want you to tongue-fuck me, Jon. I want you to suck on my clit 'til I cum," she moans out, unable to stem the words – and unwilling – especially not when he bucks against her at the demand, his cock digging hard and hot along her thigh, his breaths coming ragged and strained at her throat.

"Gods, but I want to taste you," he moans out. "Want to bury by face between your thighs, want to lick you up, feel you gush along my tongue, have you cum in my mouth over and over again," he gets out on a growl, his tongue swiping over her collar bone, drawing a breathy sigh from her.

Sansa curls her hand around his wrist, burying his fingers deeper inside her. "Then what are you waiting for?" she pants out, grinding along his hand.

Jon pulls his hand from her cunt suddenly, so sudden that Sansa startles at the loss, whimpering, mouth parting on a protest. But she doesn't have time to question it, jolting, instead, at the unexpected way he hauls her up his body, sliding down the bed as he does so, dragging one of her thighs over his side so that she's straddling his chest.

"Jon!"

He shimmies further down the bed now that she's atop him, his hands urging her thighs further apart, and she rocks forward at the motion, hands catching along the headboard to steady herself. She looks down to find Jon's face between her legs, his eyes dark and hooded as he stares at her cunt, licking his lips, and her gut clenches at the sight, a breathy moan escaping her lips.

"Jon," she moans out, lip caught between her teeth.

His hands slide down her thighs, then back up, curving over her hips as he glances up at her. He turns his head, presses a close-mouthed kiss to the tender flesh of her inner thigh. She shudders at the touch.

"I want you to fuck my mouth," he growls out, voice hoarse, teeth sinking into her thigh now.

Sansa throws her head back, grinding toward his mouth instinctually. Jon's hands hold her hips at bay, and she whimpers at the hold, looking back down at him, her chest heaving, eyes narrowed on his devilish smirk. He laves his tongue over her thigh, swiping over the place he'd just bitten, moaning into her flesh when she bucks against him. He twists his head to nip at her other thigh, mouth dangerously close to her cunt, his fingers digging into her hips now.

A breathy moan drags through her lungs. "Gods, Jon, then just let me fuck your mouth," she pleads, absolutely dripping by now, her cunt pushing closer to his mouth, clenching at the way he brushes kisses over her inner thighs, tongue slipping closer and closer to her center.

Jon chuckles at her impatience, shifting beneath her, one of his hands winding over her ass, urging her further open, pressing his face up into her as his tongue swipes up her folds, slow and steady, drawing a high-pitched whimper from her lips. She jolts at the sensation, sinking into him, hands curling along the headboard. "I want you to ride my face," he mutters darkly into her cunt, holding her still as she shudders above him. "Just like you rode my cock last night," he growls out, tongue flicking over her nub. "Want you to fuck my mouth good just like that, Sansa – want you to grind that soaking wet cunt over my lips, let me shove my tongue inside you, lick you up." He moans long and low into her heat.

Sansa yelps, eyes slamming shut, thighs trembling at the vibration. She whines at the way he keeps her legs from spreading wider, from sinking her cunt over his mouth. Her nails dig into the headboard. "Jon," she hisses.

"Is that what you want, too?" he asks her, circling her clit with slow teases just at the tip of his tongue, just an edge away.

" _Gods_ , yes."

Another slow swipe up her folds, his fingers digging painfully into her hips. "Tell me," he grinds out.

Sansa slams a hand down along the headboard. "Jon!"

" _Tell me_."

Sansa curls a hand through his hair, yanking his head back forcefully, reveling in the hiss that leaves him. She glares down at him,

" _Fuck_ , Jon, eat me out. _Please_. Eat me out til I'm screaming, please, _fuck_. Fuck, Jon, I – lick me up. Fuck me with that tongue, Jon. Eat me out 'til I'm cumming over your face, _gods,_ I want to cum all over your face," she snarls, dragging his head to her cunt by his hair, shoving her legs wide over his face, and this time, he lets her, burying his moan deep inside her cunt, and she practically _vibrates_ with the sound, choking out a broken whine, head thrown back.

Jon wraps his arms around her hips, hands hooking over her thighs to drag her down along his tongue, lapping her up messily, the slick sound of her cunt grinding over his mouth mingling with her heavy pants.

She moans long and low, hips rolling atop him recklessly, seeking the wet heat of his tongue at her clit, rubbing herself shamelessly over his face, arms quaking as she holds herself up by the headboard. "Oh gods, just like that," she chokes out, breath hitching when she looks down, watching his dark eyes peering up at her through the fringe of his curls as he opens his mouth wide over her, licking her up, groaning into her cunt with every sloppy, desperate pulse of his tongue. His mouth slips along her wetness, the slick, lewd sounds filling the room as he drinks her up, hands encouraging the sharp thrusts of her hips at his face, eating her out with the same heady need that has her fucking his mouth wantonly.

His eyes slip shut as he loses himself in her heat.

Sansa gasps at the hard suck he gives her clit, arching back sharply, one hand still on the headboard, the other reaching back to settle along his thigh, keeping her body strung tight. "Yes, yes, fuck, _yes_ , Jon, ngggh, yes, gods!" she cries, pounding her cunt into his mouth, head thrown back with her hair spilling over his stomach.

Jon draws a hand away from her thigh, bringing it sharply back down along her ass. Sansa jumps at the smack, crying out, gushing along his tongue. "Again," she demands breathlessly, before she can question herself.

Jon smacks her ass again, kneading the flesh there, groaning into her cunt as he buries his tongue inside her, mouthing at her greedily.

"Nngh, Jon – Jon, I'm gonna cum," she moans out, nails digging into the flesh of his thigh, the headboard rattling beneath the grip of her other hand.

He only licks at her faster, harder, driving his tongue up her slit, pressing hot and wet at her clit.

" _Fuck_ , Jon," she howls, "I'm gonna cum in your mouth. I'm gonna... I'm gonna... " Her chest heaves, her thighs quaking, muscles bunched tight, grinding her cunt into his mouth with a savageness, body bowed back, and it's the graze of his teeth at her clit, how he sucks it hard into his mouth, drags his hot tongue up her slit with a needy grunt, that has her shattering there atop his face.

Sansa shoves the headboard back with the force of her release, driving into his mouth, arching almost painfully back, a scream ripped from her as she rides her pleasure out, thrusting over his tongue, drowning him in her juices, slowing with ragged, teeth-clenching whimpers.

Jon shifts beneath her, hands loosening over her thighs as he cradles her through the shudders that rack her body, panting heavily between her legs, staring up at her with dark, glazed eyes when he pulls his mouth from her sodden heat.

She slumps forward atop him, arms almost buckling as she braces herself along the headboard. Wincing slightly at the ache in her back, Sansa tries sliding her legs down his sides but finds little strength left in them.

"Come here," he offers, helping her pull her leg back so that she can settle beside him, drawing her back down the length of his body so that he's level with her again as they lay facing each other.

Her vision swims, her pants heavy and lung-tingling. "Mm, Jon," she mewls, wiping the sweat-dampened curls back from his brow. His whole mouth is glistening with her wetness, his beard thoroughly soaked, and another sharp curl of desire tugs at her gut, even spent as she is. She rocks into him, trembling at the firm press of his cock at her heat, moaning softly when it slips along her soaked inner thigh.

Jon shudders when his cock slips against her cunt, and Sansa instinctively opens her thighs, sliding her leg over his. Jon reaches for her thigh appreciatively, dragging her hips into his, a rumble in his chest as his cock slides over and over her soaked cunt.

Short, sharp spasms rack her when the hard length of him grazes her clit, still sensitive from her release. She whines at his mouth, hips undulating toward him anyway.

"Gods, Sansa, you taste so good," he growls at her mouth, nipping at her bottom lip.

In a rush of heat, Sansa darts her tongue out curiously, chest still heaving, licking up his swollen, slick lips, and Jon sighs against her tongue, opening his mouth to her, devouring her in a bruising kiss, his own tongue hot and wet and tart along hers. She moans into the kiss, her hand slipping between them to grasp at his cock.

He bucks in her hand, breath hitching along her tongue. She starts to stroke him, hand gliding easily over his cock when it's already drenched in her release. Jon whines at her mouth, pulling back just enough to pant against her lips. "Gods, I need to be inside you, Sansa. Need to feel you wrapped tight around my cock." He thrusts shallowly into her hand, hitching her thigh higher up his hip. "Want to cum inside you, Sansa, deep, _deep_ inside you," he whines, voice hoarse. "Please. Want to – fuck, I want to see my cum dripping from your cunt. Want to see my seed gushing down your thighs, please, nggh, _fuck,_ " he growls out.

Sansa doesn't waste any more time, lining him up at her entrance and then he's gliding in, and Sansa clenches around his cock, still sensitive, gasping at his mouth.

Jon releases her thigh to grab at her hair, his hand tangling in the strands, drawing her head back with a hiss, his hips already easing into a steady, deep rhythm. Sansa's mouth parts, her nails digging into his flesh when she grabs for his ass, hauls him into her.

"Fuck, you're so tight," he groans out, pumping into her. "So tight and wet around my cock."

Sansa whimpers when he tugs her hair, mouth brushing over his, his hot breath painting her lips, and the intimacy of it sends her spinning, lying there braced so close to him, watching him as he fucks her with long, deep thrusts. She claws at him, tries to draw him closer, pushes her breasts up against his chest, wants to burrow inside him.

"Oh, fuck, Sansa, fuck, fuck, fuck," he grits out, hips driving into hers, his cock plunging in and out of her cunt, her wetness pooling on the bed beneath them. "I'm not gonna last," he snarls at her mouth.

"Fuck me, Jon," she pants out, teeth catching along his lip. "Fuck me harder. Deeper. Gods, I want to feel you deep inside me."

Jon's hips stutter at the words that leave her, fingers clenching in her hair almost painfully, and then he's growling at her lips, pushing her back along the bed, shifting so that his weight is draped over her now and he hauls her leg up by the knee, spreading her wide, sinking his cock deep inside her with a throaty groan.

Sansa's eyes roll back in her head, a ragged cry leaving her, nails dragging along his back.

And then he's slamming into her, pushing her leg back so that it's pressed up against her chest, drawing a sharp gasp from her, when he pushes deeper inside her, plunging strong and hard into her gushing cunt.

"Gods, Jon, yes – _yes_ , fuck me!" She claws at his back, sobbing with her need.

"So wet for me, Sansa," he hisses at her lips, stealing a long, filthy kiss from her, tongue sweeping into her mouth greedily. He breaks from her, chest heaving, dark eyes fixed to hers. "So fucking wet for me, always. So tight around my cock, that sweet, wet cunt. Fuck – _fuck._ Cum for me, Sansa. I want you to cum around my cock, want to feel you peak when I'm spilling hot and thick inside you – fuck, you're absolutely _gushing_ for me, so fucking wet, so fucking – fuck – gonna make you cum for me, have you screaming for my cock, have you wide and wet and _aching_ for me, _fuck!_ So tight, so – fuck, fuck, _fuck_ , fuck, gonna cum, gonna cum, fuck, Sansa, fuck, _fuck!"_ he roars, slamming into her, spilling over and over and over, dragging his mouth back to hers, sloppy and desperate and starved, his teeth sinking into her lip, relishing in her gasp, eyes squeezing shut when she clenches around him, a broken cry raking along her throat, and he swallows it back, sucks on her tongue through her peak, long and slow as his thrusts shallow out and her nails unhook from his shoulder blades. Her arms drop to the bed with a throaty sigh.

"Jon," she manages against his mouth, voice hoarse, one trembling hand reaching up to sift through his curls.

He mouths at her lips again, breath hitching, unwilling to disentangle from her, a shudder raking through him that has nothing to do with his exhaustion.

Her fingers are gentle at his sweat-slicked temple. "Jon?"

"I love you," he breathes into her mouth, pressing his forehead to hers, keeping them a single, melded line. "I love you, I love you, Sansa, gods, _I love you_ ," he groans between kisses, a sob catching along his words, dropping her leg back down to bury both hands in her hair now, chest pressed to hers, kissing, and kissing, and _pleading_.

She hardly even knows what it is he's pleading for, but she hears it in the way he swears his affection against her lips, in the way he drapes his weight around her, in the way he clings to her with trembling fingers.

And maybe this is how they've always spoken – with their bodies. With touch and taste and weight behind every gesture, every move, every glance. Drawing letters over each other's hearts in a language only their skin knows.

Her hand curls at the nape of his neck.

"I love you," he gasps into her mouth, and her voice catches with the threat of tears.

(The kind of courage that lays you bare.)

But perhaps it's time they learned a new language.

Sansa's eyes slip shut on an exhale. "And I love you," she vows, fingers threading through his hair, the soft curve of her belly braced just beneath his solid form.

(The kind that doesn't look away in turn.)


	15. Tooth and Nail

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It is not, perhaps, the kind of love she once wanted. But it is the only kind of love she'll ever want again." - Jon and Sansa. Like the curve of the horizon, when the moon breaks from beneath its bow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, you read that chapter count right. Only one more after this. As for this chapter...
> 
> Some of you will hate me. Some of you will - well - love me just a little less than before, I guess. But this has always been where this story was headed. I can tell you, at least, that our heroes will have their justice in the end, if that softens the blow at all.
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING for blood and minor gore.

Disclaimer: I own nothing, I make no money.

From Instep to Heel

Chapter Fifteen: Tooth and Nail

_"It is not, perhaps, the kind of love she once wanted. But it is the only kind of love she'll ever want again."_ \- Jon and Sansa. Like the curve of the horizon, when the moon breaks from beneath its bow.

* * *

They find Rhaegar Targaryen dead on a nondescript morning half an hour past dawn.

Jon and Sansa are roused from their bed and called down to Aegon's solar. Just before they reach the door, Jon slips his arm from her hold to instead reach down and link their hands together. She looks up at him as they stop just outside the threshold.

He sees the nervous flex of her throat and brings their joined hands up to brush a kiss along her knuckles.

"Jon, your father..." she says brokenly, the threat of tears lining her words. All for him. Always for him.

He lets out a shaky breath along her knuckles, keeps his mouth pressed to her skin. And then he pulls back, swallowing tightly. "I'll be alright." A short, tight nod. "We'll be alright."

Later, he tells himself. Grieve later. Rest later. There is too much at stake now to lose himself to it.

She keeps his gaze, says nothing in return. But something of understanding passes between them then, and the graze of her thumb over the heel of his palm is answer enough.

Jon opens the door.

The first gaze he meets belongs to Daenerys. She's standing at the edge of Aegon's desk, arms crossed over her chest with a glance over her shoulder at them when the door creeps open. Her face is a tight mask, the barest of shadows beneath her eyes. It strikes him suddenly, that she has lost her brother. And he cannot rightly tell what it stirs in her, so fiercely stoic is her mask. But the harsh clench of her fingers over her arms, digging white imprints into her flesh – that is enough to tell him _something_ is stirred in her.

Jon looks away from her, to just behind her, where Rhaenys sits in an armchair along the wall, legs crossed gracefully, a nervous finger tapping along her armrest. She's wearing the same dress she wore the night before, and he wonders, briefly, if she's even slept at all. Her eyes flick to Jon and Sansa's joined hands for a moment, lips thinning into a tight line, and Jon is sure he feels Sansa's attempt to pull away, but he holds tight. Doesn't let her go. Rhaenys glances away as they step into the room.

"Welcome, brother." The silky voice calls his attention away and toward Aegon.

He's standing behind the desk, leaning over it with his fingertips perched elegantly along the wood top. The purple bruise from the previous night is harsher now, branching over his sharp cheekbone, the fall of salt-white hair over his shoulder casting it in shadow. "You're just in time," he says.

There is a measure of challenge to his voice, and Jon is perfectly aware as to why. He clears his throat. "Your Grace," he greets, head bowed.

(It is not the sort of challenge Jon ever intends to meet, after all.)

The slip of a smile curls at the edges of Aegon's mouth, like a spill of fine wine.

Sansa curtseys beside Jon as she releases his hand, offering her own greeting.

Aegon stands fully then, hands slipping behind his back. "Yes, well, I suppose even the servants must know by now," he says.

"They know a Baratheon traitor killed their king," Daenerys says, voice even. She cocks her head at her husband. "And they know we're vulnerable to siege. Dangerously so."

"We beat them back," Rhaenys contends, standing and walking toward them, stopping just at Daenerys' side. There's a subtle desperation to the words, a need Jon understands too well, for he cannot imagine her fate had they _not_ beaten them back.

"Yes, but at what cost?" Aegon hisses, a glance to their sister. He shakes his head. "If they can kill a king in his own keep..." A refined sort of snarl mars his mouth.

"'They'," Jon repeats, stepping cautiously forward. "What 'they' are you speaking of?"

Daenerys nearly scoffs. "No one in this room is simple enough to miss the obvious."

Rhaenys folds her arms over her chest, shrinking in on herself.

Daenerys looks back to Aegon. "Stannis had help. He had help from the _inside_. Or else those gates would never have been opened. Those soldiers would never have made it so deep inside the castle so quickly."

"Agreed," Aegon says, brows furrowing. "And if we mean to show the kingdoms that House Targaryen has not been weakened by this assault then we need to act quickly."

_Not been weakened?_ Jon wants to scream.

Their father is lying dead in his chambers this very moment, staining the air foul, rotting up the room.

_Not been weakened?_

Jon's hands clench into fists at his sides. "You speak as though you already know who's betrayed us."

Rhaenys glances up at the words, mouth parted anxiously.

Aegon sighs, chin lifting. "Father was near raving in the end there, I admit, but he had one thing right."

Jon swallows thickly.

Aegon tips his head slightly, eyes on Jon. "Viserys' fleet was too conveniently absent."

"Forgive me, Your Grace," Sansa begins, stepping up beside Jon, "But are you saying you believe your uncle orchestrated this with Stannis Baratheon?"

Aegon releases a short, sharp laugh – almost a bark. "Hardly, my lady. He hasn't the mind for such a clever coup."

"Then...?"

Daenerys frowns. "Either Stannis is a greater strategist than any of us have given him credit for, or Viserys has been getting some very treasonous ideas from his Lannister wife."

Rhaenys shakes her head, lip between her teeth, chest heaving. "Stannis would have done whatever it took to break Father after the rebellion. Even if that meant allying with the Lannisters."

"But the Lannisters have no reason to break faith with the crown. Not now," Sansa argues.

"They would if they thought they had a chance to supplant Father with Viserys and Cersei," Aegon says, a rueful chuckle leaving him. "Granted we were killed in the process," he finishes, nodding to Jon.

But Jon's mind is reeling, spinning. There's something in the back of his head like a steady scratching, a hum of discontent. It settles in his gut like shifting shards of glass. "Your Grace," he begins, licking his lips. "Do you really think Tywin would chance such a ploy with Ser Jaime in the Kingsguard? A possible victim of the siege? Do you really think he would risk his line, even if he would risk anything else?"

Aegon's mouth dips into a frown at the comment.

"If Cersei wasn't playing to her father's tune and whispering in Viserys' ear," Daenerys snaps, eyes fire-lit, "Then she was, at the _least_ , privy to his treason and chose not to inform us. I _cannot_ believe that conniving woman would not know what was going on under her own nose, in her own home, and thus, that _Tywin Lannister_ would not know. The Lannisters are complicit in this attack, at best. And they are openly traitorous, at worst." Her eyes snap to Aegon. "There can be no mercy for either."

Aegon clenches his jaw, the motion seeming to pain his bruised cheek, or to pain something else, Jon cannot be sure. But there's a hesitance in his features, an uncertainty. It throws Jon just the slightest.

"Your Grace,' he tries, voice low and even.

Aegon's gaze flicks warily up to his.

"We're vulnerable, and we've taken too many losses." He licks his lips, swallows thickly. "But we are not alone."

Aegon quirks a brow his way.

"Call upon the North."

Daenerys releases a disbelieving laugh. "Summon Ned Stark? When we've not even discerned the traitor yet?"

"My father is not a traitor," Sansa says vehemently, chin raised. "He tried to warn us. He sent Theon Greyjoy with his missive, didn't he?"

"How do you know that?" Aegon asks quietly, voice thin, eyes sharpened like cuts of glass.

"I told her," Jon says instinctively, never missing the soft intake of breath Sansa breathes beside him.

Aegon's gaze slips to Jon once more, steady and unnerving.

Jon clenches his jaw at the look, hardly daring to say more.

"And what will the North give us, dear nephew?" Daenerys sneers.

He does not blink when he swings his dark gaze her way. "Time, at the very least."

She bristles at his remark.

He looks back to his brother. "You want to test Tywin Lannister's loyalty? You want the kingdoms to see our strength? Show them that the North still answers to the crown. Show them that fealty and solidarity are rewarded. Make Ned Stark your Hand."

Sansa swings wide eyes to Jon, stepping into him, a hand at his sleeve. "Jon," she whispers.

He presses his palm reassuringly over her hand.

It is too much to expect to be named heir, even if such a thing promises the sort of safety he wishes for Sansa, for their babe. To voice it would cast too much suspicion, especially now. And he never wanted a crown in the first place. Never wanted a hand in it. Let them squabble over heirs. Jon wants peace. Just peace.

But he's not stupid enough to think they can survive King's Landing alone anymore.

Daenerys' mouth opens, but no words follow.

Aegon's hands slip from behind his back, leveling on the table edge before him. His eyes narrow on Jon instantly. "What did you say?"

Sansa's hand curls tight in Jon's sleeve, but he ignores it. "Make Ned Stark your Hand," he repeats, voice steady.

A moment of keen disquiet passes through the room, and then Rhaenys steps up beside Aegon, a hand at his elbow, head bowed to him. "You would slight Dorne with such a choice for Hand," she says evenly. She glances to Jon out of the corner of her eye. "They will not have it. Not with Stark blood next in line for the throne."

Aegon works his jaw, never looking at her.

A sound escapes Daenerys, strangled and low. She clears her throat. "Rhaenys," she seethes, wetness dotting her eyes.

Rhaenys frowns, hand slipping from her brother, face softening as she turns to Daenerys. "You know it as well as I. If you cannot conceive..." she says almost sadly, voice trailing off.

Sansa's hand falls from Jon's sleeve, and he does not miss the motion.

Aegon sucks a quiet breath through his teeth. "Rhaenys," he admonishes.

But her eyes are clear when they look back at him. "Jon is your heir, until you've a child of your own. Or would you rather name our uncle?"

Aegon's face screws into an ugly visage, lip curling at the insinuation. "Viserys will _never_ \- "

"No, he will never," Daenerys promises coldly, chin lifting.

"You don't have to name an heir, Your Grace, not just yet," Jon says. "You've just come into your reign. This isn't the time." He swings his imploring gaze around the room. "But we need allies. The North is still our ally."

"They are our _subject_ , if you recall correctly," Aegon nearly snarls. "There is a difference."

Jon drops his gaze in deference, his skin itching with his frustration, knuckles white where he clenches his fists at his side.

Aegon's face slips back into a mask of practiced grace, the curl of his lip evening out. "No. What we need is to reestablish faith in the true Targaryen line." He looks to Daenerys then, a flicker of concern crossing his features. "And I will not let the Lannisters play our uncle like a puppet. Until I've a son to call my own, it must be Jon."

Daenerys's chest heaves, her eyes narrowing sharply. "He is a bastard."

Somehow, Jon thinks it should hurt less by now. And yet, it never does.

At his peripheral, Sansa presses toward him, a measure of silent comfort.

Aegon pinches the bridge of his nose. "He's legitimized, Daenerys."

"A hollow gesture," she cries, voice shrill now, desperate. "He's hardly a dragon."

Aegon ignores her, turning to Jon. "I'll consider your recommendation for Hand, but I promise nothing."

"Aegon," Daenerys bites out, jaw working.

Jon blinks at his brother, mouth parting. "That's not what I..."

Rhaenys shakes her head, a soft curse at the edge of her lips. "Don't insult Mother like this," she pleads, eyes imploring on Aegon.

"Your Grace," Daenerys tries again, voice dangerously low, a stillness overtaking her that chills the air in the room.

Jon swallows tightly when he glances to her, Sansa's words from earlier that morning taking root instantly.

_Daenerys knows about the babe_.

The air leaves him, the words stalled on his tongue, but Sansa must be thinking the same thing because –

"Your Grace, there's something you should kn – " Her words are cut off sharply.

"Sansa's with child," Daenerys interrupts with a snap of her teeth.

The room goes still. Jon's gut clenches painfully at Daenerys' exhale, his hand going for Sansa's at his side on instinct. He tastes her stark regret in the air, the confession stolen clean from her own lips. It rattles something of rage inside him, quieted only by a branding, instant fear.

Aegon slips his hands behind his back smoothly, eyes riveted to his wife. His pristine features, marred only by the blooming bruise at his cheek, sharpen almost indiscernibly. "What did you say?" His voice is like the snap of scaled wings.

Jon keeps his gaze resolutely from his sister's, even as he feels her sudden, wide-eyed stare on them. He only grips tighter at Sansa's hand in his.

"Brother..."

Aegon's gaze whips to Jon. "It is ' _Your Grace'_ ," he seethes darkly.

Jon lets out a stifled breath, blinking back the wetness. "Your Grace," he chokes out.

"How... how long have you known?" Rhaenys whispers out.

It takes all of him to tear his gaze to hers, only to find her eyes fixed to Sansa's stomach, tear-laced and unblinking. She clears her throat, wipes a hand over her face, looks back up at him.

Like the tears had never been.

But he catches the minute flex of her throat when she voices her question once more. "How long have you known?"

"Yes," Aegon breathes lowly. "How long?"

"Please forgive him, Your Grace," Sansa says suddenly, voice wavering just the slightest. "I only just shared the news with Jon this morning. It's what we'd meant to bring to you after we broke our fast but then..." Her voice breaks off with a pained sigh, gaze falling to the side.

"Then our father conveniently died," Aegon finishes for her.

She glances up at his comment, horrified. "No, Your Grace, that's not – "

"Your Grace," Jon pleads, throat tight.

"And how fitting," he interrupts, "That we should be speaking of heirs this morn." The king's smile is thin and wicked.

Daenerys stews in her disquiet at the edge of the desk, watching. Her fingers press white imprints into the pale flesh of her arms where they cross over her chest, like a shield. Or perhaps like a cage.

Jon thinks the distinction is rather lost on him these days.

He clears his throat, runs a reassuring thumb over Sansa's knuckles, though he cannot tell which of them he is trying to comfort more. "Please, Your Gace, there is still the traitor to consider. This... this changes nothing on that accord."

Rhaenys stumbles back a step, eyes drifting to the floor, clearly shaken. "This changes everything," she whispers brokenly.

It only makes him angrier. The vexation stains his throat, brings a growl to air. "Our babe is _not_ the threat here."

"Enough," Aegon says tightly, jaw clenching. He's looking down at the desk before him, breathing deep. "Viserys will be summoned to King's Landing to account for his...dereliction." He looks back up, meets each of their eyes in turn. "I will hear no more talk of my heir. And that is final."

Daenerys' lips part, an aborted breath on her tongue.

"That is final," he presses, locking eyes with her. The flex of his jaw softens just the slightest when she glances away, eyes wet, nails digging half-moons into her arms.

Rhaenys draws an unsteady breath in, clearing her throat. "And Stannis?"

Jon glances to her at the mention, feels something stir in his chest. Remorse, perhaps. Or helplessness.

Always his sister, he finds.

Neither of them done right by, in the end.

She does not look at him.

Aegon sighs, shoulders loosening, and the look he gives their sister is startingly fond, tinged at the edges with a sadness like memory.

Not the sort he wants to keep.

"If he wants to keep his life, he'll talk."

Rhaenys' face screws into something ugly. Daenerys scoffs beside her.

"He should die for what he's done," Rhaenys grits out, trembling. "He must."

Aegon turns to her then, hand reaching for her cheek, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. "And he will. After he's spilled his secrets."

Rhaenys shakes her head, face bunching as though sick, stumbling back from Aegon's tender touch. "No, his life is _mine_. You cannot take that from me."

Aegon straightens slightly, hand falling back to his side. "You forget yourself, sister. I am king now, and my word is law."

"Aegon," she seethes, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes – wild and desperate.

"I'll not hear more," he says, turning away.

She lets out a disbelieving breath, head shaking again. "No, I can't - I can't sleep beneath this roof, I can't - not when he's alive. When he's _here_ , alive, and – Aegon, please, _no._ I can't! Do not make me, please, brother. _Kill him_." Her voice cracks at the end, the rupture traveling all the way through her, sending her to violent shaking.

Aegon's eyes slip shut. "Leave me. All of you."

Rhaenys goes toward him, hands outreaching, but Daenerys grabs her back, hands at her cheeks, shushing her, pulling her gaze toward hers. "No, no," Rhaenys mutters brokenly, crumbling in Daenerys' arms, stumbling against her as Daenerys pulls them toward the door, a final, searing glance her husband's way, and Jon feels Sansa drifting toward the two women, face pained, words cracked and teetering at the edge of her lips, and he tugs her back by the hand, keeps her fist clenched in his larger one, swallows thickly as he shakes his head at her, even when his own pity for Rhaenys leaves him rattled.

"You will stay, Jon."

Jon glances up at Aegon's words, startled somewhat. Sansa stills beside him.

Aegon's eyes flit toward Sansa briefly, violet and sharp-hewn. "You may leave, Lady Sansa."

She offers a fumbling farewell, curtseying dutifully, hand slipping from Jon's as she backs away. "I'll wait outside, my lord," she says to him, a nod his way, lip caught between her teeth, and he sees the way her hand slips toward her stomach unconsciously. The door closes behind her before he can do more than croak in answer.

He is alone with his brother now. Or rather, he is alone with the king. It makes a fair difference now, he finds.

He looks up at him, meets his gaze.

Silence brews in the space between them. And then Aegon slips a hand toward the desk, tapping a finely-shorn nail along the table top. He cocks his head at him, a wan smile breaking over his lips. "What am I to do with you?"

The question lights something of unease in him. Jon shifts his weight from one leg to the other, mouth still clamped tight. Words fester and die in his throat, unheard. He swallows them back like bile.

In the end, he has no answer for him.

Aegon stops the delicate tapping of his nail, fingers curling into a fist, slow and measured. He braces his knuckles along the edge of the desk as he leans over it. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. You did exactly what Father asked of you. Got a babe on your pretty little Northern wife."

Jon keeps is jaw clenched tight, standing stock-still on the other side of the desk.

Vaguely, he remembers the stone their father kept as a paperweight atop his desk – a stolen favor. He doesn't know why the thought should come to him now – only that it does. He swallows thickly, shaking the memory away.

Perhaps he does have an answer for his brother.

"You ask what to do with me?" he asks, chest heaving, just the once – a single, labored breath. "Send me away."

A finely arched brow is his only response.

Jon licks his lips, continuing. "Send us to Winterfell, away from the capital, away from any courtly influence. I know I will never truly be your heir. I've always known that, and I've never resented it. Naming me is just a means to punish Viserys, to remind him of his place, and I _understand_ that, I do. So, have your justice. Call Viserys to King's Landing and hold him accountable. Drag whatever names you need to from Stannis. And then _let us go_ ," he pleads, voice cracking at the end, and he swallows it back, tries to rein in his breath, this thundering need in his chest, this rattle of desperation coiling tight in his lungs.

_Just let us go_.

Aegon stares at him quietly, a tick in his jaw, head cocked. He takes a moment, lets him stew in his unease. And then he blinks, face slipping into seemingly boredom. "No," he says.

Jon lets out a disbelieving breath, a hand wiped over his mouth, shaking with it. "Your Grace."

"You would have me send you North, and take Ned Stark as my Hand?"

"Ned Stark is – "

"Do not tell me what Ned Stark is," he seethes suddenly, face darkening. "I know very well what Ned Stark is." Aegon's lip curls, something angry and bitter branching out over his features. "He's a safety net for you. A way to placate my need for allegiance without costing you your freedom."

"What _freedom_ , Your Grace?" Jon demands derisively, reckless in his urgency.

Aegon shakes his head. "I will not have it."

Jon leans over the other side of the desk, hands placed along the wood top, staring his brother down. "What are you so afraid of?"

A flicker of resentment lights Aegon's features, and it almost startles Jon with its sincerity, brief as it is.

There, and then gone.

Aegon's lip curls familiarly. "You can ask me that, after everything? After what has happened?"

Jon shakes his head, throat bobbing. "Aegon, talk to me."

"I will _not_ be the king that let House Targaryen splinter to pieces," he snarls.

Jon presses closer, eyes imploring on him. "And I will not be the usurper Daenerys paints me as."

"She has reason to be wary, especially now."

"So send me away!" he snaps, acutely anxious, desperate now, teeth clenching at the words.

"With a babe on the way? With the only viable Targaryen bloodline in your wife's belly?" Aegon scoffs. "Come now, Jon, you can't be that simple."

It hurts. It hurts more than he ever thought it would. Jon rears back slightly, face pinched tight. "Is that what I am then? Am I a hostage now? In my own home?"

"You are a member of this House," Aegon says lowly, frown harshening. "And you belong in King's Landing."

Jon's sees red. Instant. Blaring. It overtakes him – rancid and biting. His lungs are full of it. He pushes from his lean over the desk, scoffing, stalking away to the far wall. "Oh, how convenient," he snarls. "To be part of the family – only now. Only now when it suits your purpose. When it is _palatable_."

"I am your king," Aegon bites out.

"And I am your brother!" Jon yells, stalking back to the desk, shaking with his fury. "Your brother, _gods dammit_ , Aegon, I am your _brother_!"

"Aye, my brother!" he bellows, fist coming down hard on the desk, a snap of air chasing the motion, like a screech bent in half, a split-open wound. His eyes are wild. Violet-cut. "And I'm supposed to trust you, am I?" he shouts, teeth gnashing. "I'm supposed to take your loyalty at its word when it's already proven so fickle? When you abandoned your king – _our father –_ once before already? Am I to expect the same? Tell me, Jon, is that what your loyalty is worth? Just a passing whim?" he demands, his booming voice filling the room, clattering into every corner, rattling the dust from the eaves.

Jon stares at him, chest heaving. He smacks his lips, the words tart along his tongue, aching for air. "I have never wished harm upon this family," he grinds out, voice catching. "Even when it wished harm upon me." His eyes prick at the corners, salt-tinged and hot. A smarting wetness. His jaw quakes with the effort to keep it at bay.

A stolen stone. Just a stupid, fucking stone. Not even worth the memory it takes to weigh him down.

As passing as a bruise.

(Except bones always remember, even when blood does not.)

A stolen stone, yes. And a loose horse in the night. A crushed petal beneath a boot. Years upon years upon years of it. Over and over. Until his skin is branded with it. Until it slips beneath his tongue like habit.

A shadow he can never shake.

_You are not the kind of bastard they've always told you you were_.

Jon holds tight to the memory of her words, even when everything else is fleeting.

(Because bruises _are_ just shadows, in the end, and still, they pass.)

He holds tight.

Aegon straightens from his lean over the desk, fist slipping from the wood. An eerie quiet overtakes him then, an unearthly stillness. "Do you know what Father called you in the end there? When he was spluttering blood and breathing his last?"

Jon's rage quiets instantly, the breath raking from him. He cannot take his gaze from him.

Aegon works his jaw, brow furrowed. "Not 'son', not 'Jon', not even 'bastard'."

Jon's mouth parts, a coil of unease tightening in his gut.

"He called you 'traitor'," Aegon tells him.

Jon looks away, a hand wiping over his mouth. He tamps down the quake in him needfully. He looks back to his brother. "What are you trying to say?" he asks stiffly, never minding the rattle in his chest – the ache.

He wonders if he will ever stop looking for love in places it has never grown. His own foolishness, perhaps.

"'He's betrayed me', he said. As he was lying there bleeding, hand at the hole in his chest, the guards in chaos around him, and even when I screamed for him, when I dropped to my knees to hold him, to _hold him_ , it was all he could say. All he could mutter between clenched teeth, his eyes never seeing me. 'He's betrayed me'. And even when enraged he was – he was crying, Jon, did you know that?" Aegon lets out a worn breath, eyes slipping shut for a brief moment. When they open, they are wet, just the slightest. Just enough to catch a flicker of light from the far window, the sun seeping into the room like a reminder – irreverent.

Jon shakes his head, chest heaving. A croak leaves him, the words stalled along his tongue.

Aegon's hands wind behind his back, shoulders pulling taut. "And yet you want me to send you away, when I have every reason to try you for treason. When that's exactly what Father would have done, what he would have _demanded_ , had he lived."

"Don't pretend you're doing any of this for me, to protect _me_ ," Jon grinds out, bitter suddenly. Bitter and shaken and holding himself together with the sharpness of resentment, with the vehemence of indignation. "Don't pretend I've ever been anything more than a tool to this family."

Aegon swallows thickly, voice hollow when he tells him, "We all have our roles to play." And it sounds so anguished, so unexpectedly regretful, that for a moment, Jon wonders if Aegon believes it – if he will always be this scared and this reluctant to break the mold.

Because he is, Jon realizes. His brother _is_ terrified, he finds suddenly, startlingly.

Of kinghood. Of mortality. Of loneliness. Maybe of all of it.

Jon's throat goes dry, fists clenching at his sides.

And perhaps he would feel sorrow for his brother, for the unbearable pressure he must feel, for this great responsibility leveled on him before his time – perhaps he would ache for him, if he wasn't already so utterly resentful of him, if he wasn't so sick and tired of hiding his own agony behind clenched teeth.

Because Jon has learned well enough by now that understanding is not the same as condoning – that he can still be wronged by that which he pities.

And that he deserves better.

Jon sighs, the exhaustion rushing over him. He pinches the bridge of his nose, his voice impossibly tender. "Aegon - "

A sudden banging on the door interrupts him. "Your Grace, Your Grace!" a voice calls.

Both men look to the door instantly, Aegon's command to enter sounding loudly through the room, and a guard bursts in without another second, panting, eyes wide. "Your Grace, it's Stannis Baratheon!"

Jon turns fully to the man, shoulders bunching in alarm. Distantly, he registers Sansa glancing into the room from her place in the hall outside, concern etched across her face.

Aegon narrows his eyes at the guard. "What is it?"

The man gulps. "He's... he's dead, Your Grace."

Jon blinks at the news, lips parting. "What?" It's a searing whisper that leaves him.

Aegon steps from around the desk, hands slipping from behind him and a dangerous glint to his eye. "What in the seven hells happened?" he seethes out, teeth nearly bared.

The poor guard blanches at the tone, mouth trembling. "Your sister, Your Grace, she...the Princess Rhaenys, she..."

Aegon rushes from the room without further word, a curse beneath his breath, and Jon follows instantly, reaching for Sansa's hand as he strides away, and she grasps it instinctively, eyes wide, questions at the tip of her tongue. They make their way through the halls quickly, down to the dungeons. Jon's heart is hammering, his lungs tight. He thinks of Rhaenys' desperate pleas just earlier. He thinks of her fallen face when Aegon hadn't granted Stannis' death that very moment. He thinks of his sister's shuddering form as Daenerys dragged her from the room.

But no, she wouldn't... To kill him would be...

Jon and Aegon stop short at the entrance to Stannis's cell, Sansa's gasp echoing about the stone walls when she pulls her hands to her mouth and stumbles to a halt just behind them.

Stannis is exactly where they left him, arms chained to the wall, back slumped against the stone, head fallen to his collar bone, only now his chest is cut to ribbons, his soiled cotton tunic drenched in blood, so that Jon cannot be sure where flesh ends and fabric begins, a tangled, bloody mess spilling out of his chest cavity, and the entire chamber is filled with a pungency, a sharp, copper-tang that lights the tongue – lessened only somewhat by the acrid scent of wet stone.

Jon rears back, a hand at his mouth. Distantly, he recognizes the light-footed steps of Daenerys coming down the stairwell toward them, racing, frantic.

"What happened? What _happened?_ What – " Daenerys stills at his elbow, nearly jerking back when her eyes land upon the scene, chest heaving with her exertion.

Jon shakes his head, glancing to the side wall where the shadows fall heavy over Rhaenys' form. She sits on the dungeon floor with her back at the wall, bloodied up to the wrists, dagger held tightly and unflinchingly in the palm of one hand, the other curled into a loose fist in her lap, the purple silk of her skirts splattered with intermittent crimson – crumpled and stained. She stares vacantly at the opposite wall, mouth parted as though on a sigh, fingers flexing over the dagger hilt in her palm.

Jon's chest constricts at the sight.

He's only ever seen such a look on her face once before – when they pulled her near-comatose form from her half-dead horse all those years ago, Ser Arthur toppling to the ground behind her in a crumple of flesh and arrows.

"Rhaenys," he whispers brokenly, face pained as he looks upon her.

Her brow flickers at the name, but nothing more.

Sansa is at his side instantly, a hand at his wrist, touch trembling, her heavy, saddened 'oh gods' sounding at his shoulder.

Jon takes a steadying breath in, tries to block out the red. He takes a step closer. "Rhaenys," he tries again, voice wavering, hands trembling.

Stannis's body slides just a fraction, corpse dragging down the stone wall, and then his weight is caught abruptly by his chained arms, his elbows snapping taut at a sickening angle.

Rhaenys barely registers it, breath evening out, eyes unmoving on the far wall.

"What... _happened?_ " Aegon demands, jaw clenching tight over the words.

The guard at the base of the stairs behind them shifts uncomfortably. "She asked to speak to the prisoner privately, Your Grace, and we... we stepped outside for only a moment – only a moment! And then he was screaming, and we rushed back inside, and she was crouched over his form, stabbing and stabbing and silent as the grave as she did so, Your Grace. Not a word uttered since, just..." He blows a breath from his lips. "Just sat there along the wall and waited for you all to come. Wouldn't let us take the dagger – not that we were too keen on trying, Your Grace, if you understand." He seems to shudder at the words. "Stabbed him seventeen times, you see. Couldn't get her off him 'til she stopped suddenly on her own, mouth clamped up tight, not a word, and he wouldn't have lasted 'til a Maester, see, barely got another breath in before he was gulping like a fish, moaning something or other, and then he was gone, Your Grace. Wasn't no helping it. And the Princess Rhaenys, she..." He stops suddenly, a weighted sigh leaving him. "She sat herself right on down along the floor like she was waiting for you."

Jon sucks a sharp breath through his teeth in sudden realization.

Seventeen.

Seventeen arrows sunk into Ser Arthur Dayne's body.

He looks back to Rhaenys, to the dagger held needfully in her bloody hand, the wet glint of it eerie in the torchlight.

She's so utterly still and quiet, and he wants to shake her suddenly – bring back that biting, righteous anger of hers. Even her cruel digs. Even that. _Something_. Anything but this silence – this ruination.

He can't watch her break a second time.

Daenerys sighs beside him. "There's no questioning him now. We'll get no answers from a corpse."

Jon glances to her out of the corner of his eye, watches the tight flex of her jaw, the tip of her thumb pressed anxiously between her pursed lips. "Is that truly your concern right now? Rhaenys just _killed_ a man."

"She's killed a traitor. A threat to our reign," Daenerys corrects, eyes slanting his way, and they're startlingly akin to his father's eyes in that moment, in the flicker of torchlight that illuminates her face – just briefly, just the span of a breath – like a memory you can't seem to shake. "I'd say she's done us a favor, except, perhaps, a little too hastily."

Jon huffs, brow furrowing. "She's clearly distraught by the experience. We need to get her to the maester," he growls out.

It's ridiculous, all of them standing around talking about it, talking about _her_. And she's just sitting there, there on the floor, without anyone even bothering to comfort her, and _gods_ , he doesn't think she can survive another break, and he wants to hold her, he does. Wants to pull her into his arms and tell her it's going to be okay (even if it's not). Wants to pull the blade from her grip and clean the blood from her hands. Wants to look her in the eye and hold her face and let her cry and _gods_ , even after everything, he just wants – he just wants to be a brother.

He just wants 'brother' to _mean_ something again.

But he's too afraid to touch her. Too afraid to open that door again.

And he won't. He won't ever open that door again.

But she just looks so lost, and so sad, and so alone. And he doesn't know how to fix that anymore. Doesn't think he _ever_ knew. Doesn't think even _she_ ever knew. Just grasping at a shroud, really, just careening around each other – him and her and Aegon and Daenerys and even Rhaegar. All of them. Just blindly groping in the dark, missing each other by miles, flailing – falling.

Never learning how to fix what they never knew had been broken.

It breaks his heart, watching his sister. Breaks it beyond any repair he thinks could be possible.

He looks down to her bloodied hands.

(There is no going back from that. He knows this intimately.)

And throughout all of this, he is acutely aware of Sansa's presence at his side – the woman he wronged. The woman most justified to demand distance from his sister. She says nothing. Takes it all in. Breathes quietly at his shoulder.

And yes, the other – equally imperative – part of him is unable to reach out to Rhaenys for _her_ sake. Because he will not submit his wife to any further disgrace, any disregard, any hurt. He will not betray his promise to her.

_You, only._

And he means it. All the way down to his bones – he means it.

But he doesn't know how to reconcile these two halves of his heart. A yearning to protect. And a yearning to honor. To do right by those he loves. Always. To keep his promises.

Jon flicks his gaze from his sister, unable to look upon her any longer, his throat flexing with his unease.

Aegon looks at his wife, a softness flickering over his features minutely, even as his eyes narrow. "I thought you took her to her rooms," he says, not unkindly.

Daenerys glances up at him, gaze tearing away from Rhaenys. "I did. But she said she wanted to be alone. I thought some rest would do her good. I thought..." She shakes her head, frown deepening. "I guess I never thought she would... " She swallows back the words, voice thick.

Aegon sighs, a hand wiping over his mouth. He crouches down in front of their sister, watches her for an indefinable amount of time, brows pinching together, eyes wetting briefly, before he blinks it away. He clears his throat, takes a breath. "I don't want them to see her this way," he says softly, voice cracking at the end. His eyes flutter shut.

Sansa's hand curls around Jon's wrist, aching and tender. He can hear the shudder in her breath from this close.

Aegon shakes his head, eyes opening once more. He moves to stand. "I want any guards who were present at the attack brought to my solar immediately. And get me a cloak, something to cover her with."

The guard behind them voices his acknowledgement of the command, scurrying out of the dungeons quickly.

Jon watches the man go with knowing eyes.

Sansa shifts beside him. "What are you going to do, Your Grace?" she asks softly.

Jon turns to her, voice caught in his throat, but she's staring at his brother, a tremble lighting her as she holds tight to his wrist.

Aegon slips his gaze to her. "I will do whatever is needed to protect my sister's honor," he says decidedly. He glances to Jon, the two of them meeting eyes, and all at once, it is seven years ago again – when their father had called Rhaenys' rescuers to his solar and had his Kingsguard strike them all down, ensuring their silence.

Jon opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes. His chest feels tight, the words lodged there.

It's not a memory he likes to hold onto.

Aegon looks down upon Rhaenys. "You're a Targaryen now, Lady Sansa. I'm sure you can infer my meaning."

Sansa quiets beside him, watching the scene with keen eyes.

"And Rhaenys?" Jon croaks out.

Aegon sighs, frowning, eyes still on Rhaenys.

Daenerys takes a tentative step toward him, a hand at his elbow. "Your Grace..."

He glances to Daenerys at her closeness, jaw tightening as he nods. "I know. She disobeyed a royal command."

"Your Grace," Jon urges, voice tight.

"But she is my sister, Daenerys," Aegon says, and Jon stops at that, blinking dumbly at him.

Aegon pinches the bridge of his nose, his eyes closing, and he is infinite years older suddenly. Wizened. Worn. Even the bruise beneath his eye seems ancient suddenly. Years upon years upon years settled into the lines of his skin.

Daenerys drops her hand from his elbow.

"She is my sister," he whispers brokenly, hand branching over his face, holding it there, releasing a tremulous breath into his palm. He shakes his head, teeth grinding. "You foolish, foolish girl," he croaks out.

All at once, Jon remembers the way Aegon had looked when they pulled Rhaenys from her horse seven years ago. The way his hands (bloodied and calloused – even as a lad, even as a boy too young to have taken life for the first time) gentled over her form when they dragged her down between them. The way he'd settled her to lean against him, nestling her weight into his side. The way he hushed her, a hand smoothing down her hair, the other at her shoulder, holding her to him. How he shook when he breathed her name.

And he remembers how they linked hands, steady and dry-eyed, at Queen Elia's funeral. He remembers how Aegon gifted her a rose after his first tourney, still armored and sweat-lined – silver and gallant. He remembers how Rhaenys sat with him when Daenerys lost their first child, how he came upon them in the gardens to find Aegon's head in the crook of her neck, arms wound tight around her waist, crying into her shoulder as she hummed a lullaby their mother used to sing to them at night.

_She is my sister,_ Aegon had said.

Jon forgets this sometimes. Forgets it too easily, really. But perhaps that is to be expected as a bastard – only ever half-welcomed. Half-needed. Half-loved.

And he doesn't mean to grow this resentment, he really doesn't. But he realizes now that he will never be the sort of brother he'd always hoped they'd see him as.

Even when he wishes to be.

"Oh Rhaenys," Aegon breathes, voice caught in his throat, his hand sliding down his face to watch his sister once more.

She seems to recognize the name, mouth parting at the address. She brings the dagger into her lap, her other hand winding around it delicately – cradling it. Her jaw quakes, and she closes her mouth. Opens it again. Tries for words. Tears bead at the corners of her eyes suddenly as she stares at the far wall. "Father wouldn't give me justice," she whispers, licking her lips. She glances up, eyes drifting just over their shoulders, never really focusing on them. And then her face crumples, the tears gathering quickly. "So, I took my own," she says, shaking with it.

Jon closes his eyes, breathes deep. He tries to wash this ache from him. Never succeeds.

"My brother," she mumbles, shifting in her seat, glancing around suddenly. "Where is my brother? I want my brother."

Jon's eyes snap open, his chest constricting, and he is half a second away from stepping back, disengaging entirely from the scene, even as his hands bunch into fists at his side, his own tears dotting the corners of his eyes, when Sansa's hand slips down his wrist to wind around his hand.

He snaps his gaze to her, but she's looking down at Rhaenys, tear tracks already lining her cheeks, mouth trembling. She gulps thickly, lashes fluttering with her tears. She gives his hand one final squeeze, before her touch retreats entirely. "Help her," she gets out unevenly, chest heaving with it, eyes never leaving the scene before her.

Jon barely manages not to stagger back. Because he doesn't think he'll ever be able to rightly fathom what it takes for her to say such words, to encourage him, to urge him in comforting the woman who caused so much heartache, who sought to strike a rift sharply between them.

"Sansa," he says, voice rough, eyes flicking over her face.

She only nods. Quickly. Short and static – sniffing back her tears. "Help her," she says again, more a plea than anything now, and he can barely manage to tear his gaze from her face when Rhaenys's frantic muttering cuts him off.

"Aegon," she calls out, the dagger slipping from her grip instantly, clattering to the stone floor. She reaches up, unseeing. "My brother. Where are you? Where's my brother?"

Jon stills, halting himself mid-step. He blinks at his pleading sister.

Her eyes darken as she blinks, focusing, eyes flitting about the room until they land on Aegon beside her. She reaches toward him, crying anew. "Aegon, help me." She tries getting to her feet but she's unsteady, falling into him. Aegon is already reaching for her though, hands winding around her back, hefting her up as she grips at him, face buried in his chest, and then he's dipping down, hooking an arm beneath her knees to lift her up.

"I'm here," he breathes into the crown of her head, her dark hair matted with sweat to her temples.

She winds her arms more surely around his neck, eyes slipping closed on a ragged sigh. "Please help me, brother. I just... I want to sleep."

Aegon adjusts her weight in his arms, grunting with the effort, jaw flexing. "I know," he says. "I know, Rhaenys."

Jon barely manages to step back in time when Aegon starts for the door, brushing past him with barely a glance his way, eyes fixed ahead instead. He makes it to the entrance of the hall of cells when the returning guard comes bounding down with a cloak, and Aegon directs him to spread the cloak over her, adjusting his grip to gather her bundled form more firmly in his arms, and then he's winding back up the stairs without a backward glance to any of them.

* * *

"How are you?"

Sansa laughs. But it's a teary laugh, catching in her throat at the end, a hand to her mouth to smother the break. She shakes her head at Theon's question, and he looks contrite at the motion.

"Suppose that was a stupid question," he mumbles, glancing away.

She laughs again, only this time – genuine.

He flits his gaze back to hers, hopeful, a hint of that mischievous smirk at the corners of his lips.

Sansa sighs, wipes at her eyes, takes a deep breath and lets it to air. "It's not a stupid question. I just... don't really know how to answer it right now." She goes for honesty, because her head is too full of everything else and she only wants to breathe. Her hands drop back down to her lap as they sit beside each other on one of the innumerable benches lining the many sunlit hallways of the keep. Just down the corridor is the door to Maester Gregoir's, where Bran still lays bandaged and drowsy from doses of milk of the poppy. Sansa glances toward the far door where her brother sleeps, her chest tightening.

Theon sighs beside her, leaning back on his hands along the stone bench. "Has the maester said anything? About..." He lets the words teeter off, closing his mouth around an aborted question.

She shakes her head. "He's made it through the night. He'll live, that we know. But whether Bran will ever regain the use of his leg..." She glances back to Theon, a sorrowful look to her eye. "I... I don't know."

He only nods, mouth a tight frown.

"Gods, he doesn't deserve this," she bites out, angry suddenly, hands curling into fists in her lap, her eyes drifting down to the motion. "He doesn't _deserve_ this."

"Neither of you do."

She glances up at him then. "What do you mean?"

He meets her eye, a sigh leaving him. "You know, you may not tell me everything, and I get that." He scoffs, but it isn't harsh, only resigned. "I'm not your brother, after all. Never will be. And I'm certainly not your husband." He swallows thickly, meets her eye. "But I think I've known you long enough to know when you're scared."

Sansa stiffens, her knuckles going white in her lap.

He glances down to her hands, face softening. "You're scared, Sansa. Have been ever since I told you about the missive from Lord Stark. And now with the king – " He stops, scrubs a hand down his face. "Sansa, what's going on?"

She bites her lip, tries to keep from shaking. Her eyes are dry and unblinking when she tells him, "I'm with child."

He straightens from his lean instantly, glancing to her stomach, and then back to her face. "With child?"

She nods, a hand smoothing over her stomach.

Theon cocks his head, brows going high. "And Prince Jon, he knows? The Targaryens?"

She nods again, chest constricting at the memory of their earlier conversation. "Just this morning."

Theon lets out a breath between his teeth, head shaking. "Sansa, it isn't safe for you here."

"Don't you think I know that?" she hisses, fingers curling over the fabric at her belly. "But you're not stupid, Theon, as much as you sometimes pretend to be," she says.

He throws her a look at the familiar insult but she bowls over it with a waved hand as she continues. "You know Stannis could never have gotten this far into the keep without an accomplice, and you know that Aegon – who, may I remind you, is king now – would never let us leave King's Landing until the traitor is brought to light."

Theon scoffs, head thrown back, "Sansa, you can't _stay here_ , you – "

"And you _know_ ," she grinds out, ignoring him, "that to hide this babe would only give our enemies more evidence to frame us as usurpers, especially if we attempt to leave the capital following such an attack."

Theon curls his lip at the remark, unable to deny its truth. "'Our enemies'," he repeats roughly. "And who is that, hmm? The Lannisters? The Targaryens? Someone else entirely? Who, Sansa?"

"I don't know!"

"Then you have to get out!"

"Don't you see?" she hisses, eyes flitting between his desperately, her hands moving to grip at her skirts, an anchor, something to steady the quake of fear rattling through her. "There is no 'out'," she scoffs. "Not of this family. Not of this life." She quiets, fierce and still. "There never was."

Theon stares at her hard, jaw grinding. He shifts to face her more fully, taking a deep breath. "Sansa, you just have to get Stannis to talk. You just have to – "

"Stannis is dead." It's a cold, even whisper that leaves her.

Theon's head rears back, eyes narrowing. "But... but he was captured, I know he was. I was _there_."

She keeps his gaze, fingers tightening over her skirts.

"The traitor, did they kill him? To silence him?"

Her mouth parts, closes, parts again.

The walls – splashed in blood. Rhaenys' haunted eyes. The grotesque way Stannis' body hung by his chained arms, innards spilling to the floor.

Her stomach turns at the memory, her skin tingling, a tremor going through her.

(To know it was _Rhaenys_ who could carve such ugliness.)

Sansa turns her head. "I don't... I don't think that it's."

Theon looks out across the hall, brows furrowed in confusion. "But then how..."

"Please don't ask me how," she whispers tightly.

It is not her sin to bear, nor hers to speak. And she thinks of all the things Rhaenys deserves from her, after what she'd done to her and Jon. She thinks of all these things, and yet, can only settle on silence.

So silence she keeps.

Theon glances back to her, notes the determined look in her eyes, the tight clasp of her hands in her skirts. He says nothing, and she is grateful for it.

She swallows back her trepidation, takes a deep breath. "Stannis is dead," she says, voice cracking. She clears her throat, tries again. "And with the king dead now also, no one is above suspicion."

Theon growls beside her, eyes shifting as he thinks, shoulders curling.

Sansa softens at the sight, her hands easing their fisting in her lap. "Theon, this information is dangerous to whoever has it, you understand? You cannot repeat what I've told you. Your life would be at risk."

"I know," he says, voice rough.

Sansa sighs, eyes closing momentarily. "And I'm afraid for Bran." She opens her eyes once more.

Theon cocks his head toward her. "I'm not leaving the capital any time soon, you know."

"Promise you'll protect him?"

"It's what I'm good at, didn't you know?" he says on the edge of a chuckle, reassurance seeping into his words.

She nods, swallowing tightly. The breath eases in her chest somewhat at the consolation.

Theon eyes her quietly a moment, before asking, "And you?"

She blinks up at him, words halted along her tongue. He's staring at her so determinedly, and she realizes, just then, exactly what her answer is. She softens at his look. "I'm not alone here anymore, you know," she says. And there's a measure of surety that hadn't ever been there before.

" _I'd make the same choice, every time."_

He'd come for her. Every time.

No, she's not alone. And she would never be alone again.

Theon flits his gaze between hers, still hard, still uncertain. She can see the clench of his teeth from the tick in his jaw.

She finds it in herself to smile – small and sure. "Jon will protect me."

She's never said it aloud, and maybe that's because she hadn't fully trusted it until now. But she remembers the way he'd put forth her father for Hand, and how he curled his palm reassuringly around her own, and how he'd held her earlier that morning, trembling and sweat-lined and bare before her – bare in ways they've never been with each other.

How he held her more precious than anyone ever has.

She notices, belatedly, the tears beading at the corners of her eyes. She doesn't bother to blink them back.

Theon's face softens at the sight of her, mouth parting slightly. He looks at her, and looks at her, and then finally looks away. His throat bobs, his hands curling over his knees when he sighs out, "You trust him, then?"

She nods. "I do."

"And you love him, then?" He looks back to her with the question.

"I do." Her answer is instant. Hardly a thought, rather – instinct.

Theon nods, never looking away. "Have you always?"

At this, she quiets. Because no, she hadn't always.

It's a hard-won love. A tooth-and-nail love. It has never been an easy love.

"No," she says, but it isn't with any sort of surrender. It isn't a confession of weakness or wrongness. It's just the truth.

And here's another truth:

It is not, perhaps, the kind of love she once wanted. But it is the only kind of love she'll ever want again.

"I've never seen a man so scared in my life," Theon says suddenly, voice tight with remembrance.

Sansa furrows her brows at him, licking her lips. "What?"

"Jon. In the courtyard, with the attack. When he was screaming for you." He turns his stare to the wall, gripping his knees. "I've never seen a man so scared."

Sansa blinks back the memory, the scrape of air along her lungs when she'd laid eyes on him, watched him scramble toward her, her limbs heavy as they moved, as they carried her across the courtyard and into his arms, as she crumpled into him, shaking and beaten and wailing.

And she remembers, distantly, the image of Theon at her peripheral, bow still in hand.

Sansa winds her hands together in her lap. "Theon..."

Theon's gaze shifts back to hers, mouth a tight line. And then his lip quirks, just the slightest, just a hint. He rakes a hand through his hair, leans back along the stone bench. "I think maybe you're right."

She arches a brow in question, throat still too raw for words.

He throws a knowing look her way. "You know, the kind of man that can look like that – he's got something to protect alright." A roguish grin breaks across his face.

Sansa feels the lightness in her chest, the ease. She smiles back at him. "Thank you."

He nods, a gruff sort of acknowledgment sounding in his throat.

Her smile flickers, her hand going over his wrist then. "For everything, Theon. Thank you for everything."

His grin falters, eyes peering into hers.

She licks her lips, blinks back the wetness dotting her lids. "I know I wouldn't have made it without you – that _Bran_ wouldn't have made it without you."

Theon sombers instantly, watching her.

Sansa pulls her hand back from his wrist, back straightening as she curls her hands into her lap once more. "I won't ever forget it," she promises fiercely, never looking away.

Theon purses his lips, a hoarse sort of laugh leaving him. "Yeah, well..." He stops, clears his throat, smiles once more – curled at the edges, wolfish – of a sort.

The image warms Sansa, her eyes wetting further.

He tuts at her, shoulders pulling back when he clears his throat once more. "Well, you'd better not. Because I plan on calling in a royal favor or two in the future, you know."

Sansa nods conspiratorially, a teary smile etching across her lips. "Of course."

Theon sighs then, eyes going to the ceiling, a hand wiping over his mouth. "Gods, this fucking place. Never thought I'd miss the asscrack of fucking nowhere that is the North."

Sansa braces a hand to her mouth as she barks a laugh, attempting to stifle it, and failing miserably. "Not enough snow for you, Greyjoy?" she taunts. "You've turned into a right Northerner, have you?"

He preens at the tease. "Near enough."

Before she can say more, Maester Gregoir opens the door down the hall, catching sight of the two of them along the bench.

Sansa stands instantly and makes her way toward him to greet him.

The greying man nods deferentially, a wan smile gracing his face. "Your brother's asking for you, my lady."

Sansa takes a breath, steadies herself. "Thank you, Maester." She turns to Theon but he's already bowing his farewell.

"I'll leave you two alone," he says. "Pretty sure Ser Rodrick is already crying for my return anyway," he laughs, head nodded toward the guest quarters.

Sansa offers an appreciative smile, curtseying delicately before striding through the door and making her way over to Bran's cot. She takes his hand, settling in a seat at his side, heart keening at the slight moan that leaves him.

Distantly, she takes note of Rhaenys' curled form along the other cot across the room, the princess' back to her, slumbering softly. Sansa swallows thickly, turning her attention back to her brother. She wipes a hand along his brow, relieved when she notices he's since sweated out his fever. "Bran," she greets gently.

His eyes flutter open to meet hers, a heavy breath raking through his lungs. "Sansa."

She nearly crumples at the sound of his voice, her words catching in her throat, her lip trembling. "I'm here," she says.

He blinks up at her, eyes focusing and re-focusing. "You're here?"

"I'm here. I'm okay, Bran," she assures him.

"I thought..." He smacks his chapped lips, eyes drifting toward the ceiling. "I thought you'd left."

She catches the break in her voice before it can make it to air. "Never."

Bran nods, the tension easing from his features. "That's right," he mumbles. "You would not leave me." He licks his lips, tries to form the words. A half-laugh breaks from him. "Stubborn as Arya, you were."

Sansa chuckles in response, watery and exhausted. She squeezes his hand in hers. "Though perhaps not half as skilled."

Bran groans something unintelligible, shifting along the cot. Sansa reaches for his shoulders, trying to ease him as he settles. "Why did you come for me?" he asks, voice rough with sleep.

Sansa blinks at him, a disbelieving breath leaving her. "Why did I come for you?"

His eyes search for hers, try to focus in his drowsiness, this state of half-wakefulness, half-dream. She wonders if he will remember this conversation, if he even knows what it is he's saying.

Bran nods, head turning to look at her more fully.

Her throat goes dry, her words sticking along her tongue. She glances down, moving to tuck his hand back beneath the blankets. "You're tired. And you haven't all your wits about you with that medicine in you. Rest."

But Bran doesn't let her pull her hand away, gripping it fiercely.

She stills at his bedside. He's staring at her, those familiar Tully eyes harsh in the candlelight – familiar in a way she doesn't particularly want to admit to.

In the way a mirror is familiar.

"Why did you come?" he asks again, his voice gravelly from sleep. "When you could have died?"

It's not something she thinks she'll ever forget – the stark, branding fear that had lanced through her when that man had gripped her by the hair and hauled her back, torn her from her clawing brother, sent her spinning with a ruthless slap along her cheek. She doesn't think she'll ever forget the wails, or the smoke, or the tightness of her own lungs in her chest as she ran and ran and ran and _screamed_. The fear. The godsdamned _fear_. The way it stained her to the root.

The way it stains her still.

(She only finds sleep in Jon's arms.)

No. She can never forget that. Not _that_.

Sansa opens her mouth but only a croak leaves her. She clamps her jaw shut, tries to smother that tremor that lights beneath her skin.

_Why did she? When death had almost certainly awaited her?_

Bran turns his head, a pain-touched moan easing from his lips, eyes slipping shut on a delirious sigh. "So stupid," he mumbles out.

Sansa stills at his words, brows furrowed sharply. "Bran, you're my pack, my – "

"Pack, pack, always 'pack'," he sneers in his drug haze, his free hand reaching up to his head. "So stupid, Sansa," he moans.

She rears back, a sharp pain in her chest, hand still gripping at his. She shakes her head, unable to find the words. "Bran, I don't..."

"Always the 'pack'," he grinds out, head turning back to face her, eyes alarmingly clear, even as he shakes from the effort, beneath both the pain and the drug. "Always the pack with you, like – like you aren't part of it yourself." His head falls back to the pillow, drowsy once more. "Like you aren't part of it yourself," he mutters groggily.

_Like you aren't part of it._

Sansa sits back in her seat, hand slipping from her brother's.

" _Jon will protect me."_

Maybe she hadn't ever fully trusted it before because it wasn't something she thought she could ask for, or have, or _demand_. Maybe she'd gotten too used to living for others, even when those others were ones she loved dearly. Maybe she'd always seen the pack as something outside of herself.

And has it always been this way? Has she always been so dismissive of herself? Her own needs, her own wants?

Did she lose herself when she went looking for something more?

" _Tell me what you need."_

She'd never heard those words before until Jon spoke them – never even knew she needed them.

Sansa's mouth opens, a shallow breath breaking over her parted lips. She slumps with the revelation, a watery laugh caught in her throat.

(To be important to someone. To be important to _herself_.)

She sucks a shaky breath in, eyes tearing.

(To know that 'pack' does not mean others before self, but the _whole_ before self. A whole that she is a part of. That she deserves to be a part of.)

Sansa curls both hands around Bran's now as he turns in his drugged state, trying to find a comfortable position to return to sleep.

"So stupid," he mutters again, eyes already drifting shut, and Sansa laughs at the words, blinking at the hot tears lining her lids. She squeezes his hand beneath her own, wants to remember this warmth always. She leans down and presses a kiss to his forehead, tugging the blanket up his chest with one hand. "Rest, Bran," she manages roughly, the weight of tears behind her words.

But it's a comforting weight. A freeing weight. Because it bespeaks a grief that is _hers_ , and a fear that is _hers_ , and a joy that is _hers_. It bespeaks a hard-won love. A tooth-and-nail love.

(Because loving _yourself_ is sometimes the hardest thing in this world.)

"Everything's so heavy," Bran says on a sigh, gripping at the sheet pulled up to his chest.

Sansa smooths his hair down, smiling at his sleep-touched face. "Rest," she says again, a gentle hum following the words, the faint start of a song.

She warms instantly at the smile that tugs at his lips when he hears the note.

And so, she settles further in her seat. And so, she sings her brother to sleep. And so, it begins – her watch to keep.

* * *

Sansa wakes some hours later, sitting up from where she had fallen asleep with her head over her arms, braced along the edge of Bran's bed. He's sleeping sounding before her, and she brushes the hair from his forehead, blinking in the late afternoon light. She glances up and finds Rhaenys sitting along the edge of her cot, watching them.

Sansa straightens, her hand retreating.

It's not a conscious stare, she thinks, the woman's eyes slightly unfocused, just a touch off kilter, as though her gaze had caught along her shoulder and not her face. As though she wasn't really seeing them.

Pulling her lip between her teeth, Sansa brushes a strand of hair behind her ear and blinks away the sleep, standing slowly. She watches as Rhaenys seems to register the motion, her gaze shifting up to meet Sansa's. Like seeing her for the first time.

Rhaenys' mouth opens, and then closes. She blinks, curls her hands over the edge of the cot. Looks away.

There is no conversation in this world that Sansa particularly wants to have with this woman right now. And yet, something tugs at her insides, sets her feet to motion. She steps around the cot, glides through slants of dimming light from the thin windows. She can hear Maester Gregoir's scribbling at his desk in the next room over, the door between them still ajar. It's unbearably quiet otherwise, and Sansa has to steady herself, smooth her hands down her skirts, keep her face an impassive mask. She stops just before Rhaenys, a bit off to the side.

Rhaenys looks to her hands gripping the edge of the cot, seems to catch sight of the blood caked nearly to her elbows, and she releases the cot instantly, stilling a moment, before bunching her hands together in her lap, fingers curling over her knuckles with an acute awareness that belies her quiet, untethered state.

Sansa glances to the water bowl along the table at the edge of the cot, catches sight of the clean cloth hanging over the edge. She reaches for it, twists the excess water out. "Here," she says, handing it to the princess. The word is a jagged cut of air. She clamps her mouth tightly closed after its release, hardly knowing why the tremor is there at all.

Rhaenys looks at it out of the corner of her eye, jaw tightening. Her hands bunch tighter, and she looks away.

Sansa stands with her hand outstretched for only a while longer, nodding quietly to herself when she finally sets the wet cloth back to the bowl. She opens her mouth once more, finds no words to muster, lets her gaze fall to the floor.

She closes her eyes, trying to push back the memory of that morning's discovery. She doesn't know which sight was worse: Stannis or Rhaenys.

In the end, she thinks it matters little.

Rhaenys shifts along the cot, the noise catching Sansa's ears so that she opens her eyes once more, and finds Rhaenys reaching for the towel herself now, taking it to her stained hands with jerky, half-coherent motions.

Sansa only watches her a moment, before she's overcome with an inscrutable discomfort, as though she were intruding on something intimate. Her eyes flit away, a delicate sigh escaping her. "I'll leave you, my lady." And then she gathers her skirts to go.

It's the king's funeral tomorrow, after all. And it will be a long day of ceremony. Rest, she'd told Bran. But she needs rest herself.

And she needs Jon, she finds.

"You know what he took from me," Rhaenys says suddenly behind her. Sansa stops at the words, at the evenness with which she says them. She turns to glance back at her over her shoulder.

Rhaenys is watching the steady motion of her hands as she wipes the towel over her palms, scrubs slowly and surely at the blood caked there.

Sansa stares at her, suddenly breathless.

"You know what fear his presence here stirred in me," she says, almost like an accusation, her jaw tightening over the words, brows furrowing sharply.

Sansa realizes then that she's speaking of their conversation just before the attack – how Rhaenys had gripped at her, begged for her not to leave, clung to her like a lifeline.

And she imagines the woman hates that Sansa was the one to see her like that. That _Sansa_ was the one she clung to, revealed herself to, was _weak_ before.

But Sansa can only nod, her words kept carefully behind the cage of her teeth.

She does not blame Rhaenys for her terror. Truly, she doesn't. She blames her for a great many other things, of course. But never for that.

(She remembers what fear feels like behind the crack of white knuckles. And she can never imagine a barrage of them. She knows this, admits it.

But her pity can only take her so far.)

"I couldn't go back to that," Rhaenys whispers tightly, fingers clenching over the cloth in her hand. She stills her cleaning, finally glancing up to Sansa. Her dark gaze is steady as stone. Not a flicker of smoke. A dead thing, wrapped in soiled silks. "I won't... go back to that," she says lowly.

A quiver makes its way down Sansa's spine, sharp in its coldness. She cannot take her eyes from the woman.

Rhaenys sets the towel back into the water bowl with a grace that almost mocks the muddied state of her hands, her skirts. She rinses the cloth, wrings it out, watches the water run pink. She takes the cloth back into her lap, gliding it up her bloodied wrist. "I waited, you know. Waited for him to come to me."

Sansa blinks at her words, confusion flitting across her face, before Rhaenys looks up, meets her eyes once more.

She understands then, without knowing how.

"I waited for Jon to save me," she says. The cloth swipes gently around her narrow wrist.

Sansa's shoulders bunch, a wariness lodging tight in her chest, face hardening.

"But he was too busy saving you," she continues, fingers splayed out as she dips the cloth between them. Her eyes flick toward Sansa's stomach, settling there. "You and that babe of yours." It's almost a sneer. Almost, but not quite. There is still too much quiet beneath the words, still too much stoicism keeping her rooted and blank.

But Sansa curves her palm across her belly instinctively, a jolt of protectiveness moving within her, flaring hot – instant and irrepressible. She feels the silk bunch beneath her fingers, tries to moor her heart to the sensation, to anchor there. "Whatever his choices, Jon has no regrets," she grinds out, the pity drowned out of her tone. Only caution remains. Only the slow circling of a wolf on watch. "Can you say the same?"

Rhaenys stills her slow wiping, sighing as she settles the bloodied rag in her lap. She looks down to it, jaw working. She blinks fiercely – like trying to clear the shroud away. Trying to see through the marring of her own skin. "I will," she says. She looks back up then.

(It's a face Sansa will remember for years and years.)

Rhaenys tips her head, the shadow of a smile curling at the edges of her lips. "I will," she says again, and Sansa cannot be certain whether it is a promise or a threat that colors her words.

She wonders if there's even a difference with this family.

Taking a single step back, she grips more firmly at her belly, never releasing her stare, never turning her back on the dragon before her. Her teeth grind – a war of pity and rage and rancid, fleeting greed coiling tight in her gut. "Rhaenys...," she begins warningly, not knowing where her censure will lead her.

And then Rhaenys laughs – nothing bright or boisterous. Only surprised. Enlightened, almost. Softening out in a disbelieving breath, a shake of her head. "She was right," Rhaenys says with one last, vehement swipe along her bloodied wrist, eyes never leaving Sansa. "To kill a living thing – it's not so hard, after all."

Sansa tastes bile at the back of her tongue, that coil in her gut bunching high in her throat now, a flash of red, and then a sudden, obtrusive halt. She rears back at the words, mind whirling.

Her hand slips from her stomach. "Rhaenys, what...?"

The door pulls open behind her, and she turns abruptly, words caught in her throat. She settles somewhat at the sight of Jon. He offers her a reassuring smile as he moves toward her. Behind him, Daenerys steps through the threshold, eyes landing on Rhaenys. She carries an orange silk gown in her arms.

Jon reaches her with a hand at her elbow, his eyes flitting over to her brother's cot. "Bran?" he asks in concern.

"Sleeping," she answers, a hand going to his at her elbow. She watches as Daenerys makes her way quietly over to Rhaenys, setting the gown on the table beside the bed. Sansa clears her throat, gaze still watchful over the two women. Distantly, she notices Jon's uneasiness beside her, how he leans toward her like comfort, his own gaze hesitant upon his aunt and sister.

"I am well, too, brother," Rhaenys says a little too sharply, dropping the soiled cloth into the bowl at her side. "If you were at all concerned."

Sansa knows how the words pain Jon, without even needing to see his face. She feels his hand curl more tightly over her elbow, hears the breath raking from him.

"Rhaenys..." he begins, and not knowing how to finish, it seems.

But Rhaenys looks to Daenerys then, wiping at her eyes, dragging a rough curl back behind her ear. "I'm done resting," she says determinedly.

Daenerys watches her with discerning eyes, sighing at the ragged look of her, head dipping down when she reaches for her arm, goes to help her from the bed. "Come," she says simply, and Rhaenys follows, one last, unnerving stare sent Sansa's way. She doesn't even glance at Jon.

Sansa blows a tense breath from her lips, turning swiftly, tugging Jon out the room with her as he fumbles after her.

"Sansa, what – "

When the door slips shut behind her she turns abruptly, winding her arms around his back, burying her face in his chest.

He stills, hands held mid-air.

"Please," she gets out on a heated breath, fingers curling in his tunic. "Please, will you just hold me?" she asks, eyes squeezing shut.

She feels his worried sigh brush along her hair, but his arms are already slipping around her at the request, pulling her into his chest, one hand snaking up her neck to settle in her hair.

She holds him tighter, lets it fill her, brands the skin of his throat with the anger of her exhale, with the exhaustion of her heavy pant in the crook of his neck. "Just... hold me."

And he does. Wordlessly. And endlessly.

She thinks he would stand there and hold her for eons, if she asked it of him.

For eons and epochs and long, countless ages.

For all the time that she may need of him.

For always.

The heel of his palm is cool at the nape of her neck.

She breathes.

He holds her.

And she breathes.

* * *

"Do you need more time?" Sansa asks gently, standing from her seat at the vanity to walk toward Jon.

He's sitting on the edge of the bed, leaned over with his elbows resting along his thighs, hands linked between his knees. He glances up at her question.

She stops just before him, brushing a fine braid behind her ear. It's the morning of the former king's funeral, and after having broke their fast with the rest of the Targaryens (a stilted, quiet affair that had her near screaming in her own skin, in much the same way she imagined every one of them at that table felt), Jon and Sansa had returned to their chambers to ready for the ceremony, donning their second best leathers and silks.

Their best, of course, are for Aegon's induction ceremony.

It's not a detail that escapes Sansa.

Jon sighs before her, rubbing a hand down his face. "No, no, I'll be...I'll be fine."

She cocks her head at him, lip caught between her teeth. She reaches a hand out toward him, palm up.

He glances to it, smiling softly, before slipping his own hand around it, tugging her toward him slightly so that she presses against his knees, staring down at him while he grazes an affectionate thumb over the back of her hand.

"Besides," he adds, "It would be improper for us to be missing, or even late."

Sansa huffs at that. "This all happened so fast. The attack, and now King Rhaegar's death. Why should you be expected to stay stoic, unaffected?" She shakes her head, ire filling her. And sorrow. "Even royals should be allowed to grieve how they need – publicly or not."

Jon chuckles at her remark, a sad smile lighting his lips as he looks down to where he holds her hand. He watches the motion of his thumb across her hand, slow and measured. He takes a breath, releases it slowly. "I'm afraid the show must go on," he says darkly, eyes never leaving their joined hands.

She reaches her other hand to his cheek, stroking down the length of his beard, heart clenching when he doesn't even look up at the motion. "Jon," she urges.

It's a worn, weathered smile that tips the corners of his mouth when he finally looks up at her. "But I thank you all the same, my lady." He pulls her hand to his mouth and presses a kiss to her knuckles, swift and clean.

She misses the warmth when it goes.

His eyes catch along her waist and he cocks his head at the laces there, motioning toward it. "Your ties," he says.

She glances down, twisting somewhat to see what he's talking about, and notices the loosening laces along her side. "Oh," she says, brows dipping down, before giving him an impish look. "Help me?"

"Here," he says, nudging her to back up as he gives her an indulgent smile. She steps from his knees and turns to the side as he rises, releasing her hand to reach for her laces instead. His fingers are deft and practiced, tugging the laces out of their holes and threading them back through evenly.

She chuckles at the concentration on his face, watching him.

It's a calm, crisp morning strangely enough, even in the midst of the chaos that descended upon the keep ever since the night of the attack. And this room, this moment, it feels like a pocket of peace tucked away from the world. She holds it tight to her chest, tries to imprint it to memory. His face, endearingly focused. The soft hue of morning light that hits his dark curls from the near window. The steady, even lull of his breathing – rooting in its constancy. The conscious delicacy in his calloused hands when he tightens her laces.

She wants to cry suddenly, and she doesn't know why.

She wonders what this image might look like with the backdrop of snow falling past their open window. With the faint hollering of Arya and Rickon down the hall. With the crisp tang of winter filling her nose. With Winterfell, all around her.

She wants to cry suddenly, and she knows exactly why.

Keeping her eyes fixed to Jon, Sansa lets out a shallow breath of hesitation, voice low when she asks him, "Why did you put my father forward for Hand?"

Jon stills his work, eyes still fixed to his hands.

She stays watching him a moment, breathing deeply. "We haven't talked about it yet."

Jon swallows, nodding. He returns to his work, tying the laces off at the end. "Aye, we haven't." He straightens fully when he's finished, hands returning to his sides.

"Jon."

He shakes his head, a sad sort of resignation tainting his exhale. "You said you were all alone." His eyes finally meet hers.

She blinks at him, turning fully to face him. "What?"

"When you learned about my past with Rhaenys. The things you said..." He clears his throat, gaze dropping. "You said you were alone, and I guess I – it was the best thing I could think of at the moment. The best way I could make sure you were never alone here again."

Something swells in her chest, near painful in its intensity. Her throat bobs, her voice cracking. "Oh," she says, and then laughs at her own inarticulate answer, a hand going to her mouth. "Jon, I..." But no words seem right, and so she stops trying, reaching her arms around him instead, bracing around his shoulders as she pulls him into her. His arms loop around her waist instinctively, his hands warm at her back.

He sighs into her hair, his head dipping to her shoulder. "I just... I just thought that if there was no way to return you home, then at least you were safer with Lord Stark in the capital. And as Hand, he'd be able to protect you in ways I might not be able to."

She curls her hand along the nape of his neck, sighs at his throat. "Thank you." It's a tremulous exhale that leaves her, and she grips him tighter at its release.

Jon presses his temple to hers, a hand smoothing up her back, and then down again. "I don't know if Aegon will accept my suggestion, but I had to try. And even if he grants us leave to go North, if Ned Stark is Hand, we can be sure that he'll also speak for Northern interests. _Your_ interests."

"Our interests," she corrects, muttered into his collar, her eyes slipping shut.

She feels his smile against her cheek in response, and then his short nod. "Our interests."

She doesn't move to release him just yet, too reluctant to be without him. His hand gliding up and down her back in comforting sweeps settles the breathlessness in her, but she's warm, almost unsettlingly warm, and when she opens her eyes her vision blurs at the edges, just a touch. She blinks it back in surprise, vision clearing quickly.

Sansa pulls back just a touch, enough to face him, her arms still wound around his shoulders.

He sighs at her mouth. "I never want you to feel trapped like that again. Like you have no way out – especially because of me."

A fond scoff leaves her lips. "Oh, Jon."

His hand settles at the small of her back, his thumb rubbing circles there. "And now, with Aegon and his suspicions, and Rhaenys..." He trails off, mouth clamping shut before he can manage the words.

Sansa drags her nails comfortingly along the nape of his neck. "I never... never thought her capable – of _that_."

Jon's gaze darkens, a worried furrow to his brow. "Neither had I."

They stand in each other's embrace a while longer, each remembering what they'd rather not remember. And then Sansa sighs, meeting his gaze. "Jon, something's not right with her. The way she looked back at Maester Gregoir's... " A shudder arches up her spine. "I can't shake that look from my mind."

Jon bows his forehead to hers, a heavy breath leaving him. "I know. And I'm scared, Sansa. I really am. I don't mean to alarm you, but... " He sighs, eyes slipping shut. "I don't know anymore. I just never thought she could do such a thing."

Sansa blinks at that, something pricking at the back of her mind. Something she should remember.

"Jon," she says warily, mind whirling.

"Hmm?"

"Something she said to me yesterday," she muses, voice trailing, eyes narrowing. "'She'...?" Her words cut off at the sharp twinge in her gut.

Jon looks at her curiously, arms loosening around her back to settle back at her hips. He dips his head to better look at her. "Sansa?"

Her eyes slip shut, a tight breath leaving her. The twinge mellows out into dull ache, hanging low in her belly. She shakes her head. "Sorry, I just... I think I need to – "

Another twinge, this time sharper, tighter. She bows beneath the pain of it, breaking from his embrace. "Oh, _oh_ , I uh... I think – I need to sit down."

Jon's eyes go wide, shifting between hers frantically, his hands moving to her elbows instantly to help her to the bed. "Sansa, what is it?" His gaze shoots down to her stomach when her hand braces there. "Is it the babe?"

The quake in his voice is worse than any lance of pain.

Sansa starts to shake. "I don't - _gods!_ " She doubles over, tears springing hot to her lids, mouth parting on a gasp.

"Sansa! Sansa, what is it?"

Her vision goes white, a low whine escaping her as she drops to the bed, one arm going out to brace her weight, the other wound around her stomach, trying to hold back the terrible pain, like a corkscrew winding slowly into her womb.

And then she feels the wetness between her legs.

"No," she mumbles, gasping, fumbling to right herself on the bed, arm protectively around her middle. She shakes her head vehemently, the tears salt-sharp at her eyes now. "No, no, no," she moans.

"Sansa," Jon begs helplessly, trying to ease her along the bed, face screwed up in fear.

The wetness is warm and heavy between her legs now, and she cries out, a shuddering wail cracking the air in her lungs, eyes screwing shut.

"Oh gods, Sansa," Jon moans, his own distress palpable.

She grabs for his sleeve, knuckles white and trembling. "Get the maester," she grinds out between tears.

He doesn't need a second command, bounding to the door and throwing it wide. "Bring Maester Gregoir!" he bellows at the guards outside their door. A passing chambermaid startles and drops a water basin, sending it crashing along the stones. "Now!" he shouts, his booming voice echoing through the hall, and the sound of their retreating footsteps reaches Sansa where she moans and drags herself up the bed.

When Jon turns back to her he stills instantly, eyes wide, a sharp breath sucked between his teeth.

The branding horror on his face lights a sickness in her, freezing her in place half sprawled over the bed, arm still wrapped tight across her middle. She follows his gaze to the spread of sheets she'd just dragged herself up, eyes lighting on the dark stain of blood trailing up to the soaked seat of her dress.

"Oh gods," she shudders out, sobbing anew, knees curling into her stomach, vision blurring, and she's hot, so inexplicably hot, sweat already lining her brow and then she's _sick_ , bile rising sour and instant up her throat, making her cough on it, and she opens her mouth, gags on a vile breath, spits into the sheet, feels it dripping down over her chin and it's - it's -

Red.

A croak leaves her as she shudders atop the sheets, a trembling hand rising up to her chin, smearing the wetness there, and then pulling back before her tear-filled eyes for her to see. For her to see the blood staining the tips of her fingers. She looks down with disbelieving eyes, focusing on the spit-up of blood she'd just coughed into the sheets.

"Jon," she gets out shakily, terror coloring her voice, eyes fixed to her own blood-drenched fingers, "What's happening to me?" she sobs.

Just before she blacks out, she feels Jon's hands pulling her back by the shoulders, his cry of her name distant and muffled, his fearful face a hazy shroud above her.

Just before she blacks out, she remembers:

Tooth-and-nail loves will always leave you bloody.


	16. Splinter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Perhaps he really is a Targaryen – to the bone. But he’s finished with apologizing about it. If this is what they’ve made him, then this is what he’ll be. 
> 
> If treason is what they expect, then _by the gods_ , he will give it to them.” - Jon and Sansa. Like the curve of the horizon, when the moon breaks from beneath its bow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, hello, it’s me again. Boo Boo the Fool. Clearly, I’ve underestimated my capacity to word vomit, thus the chapter count has been updated. It’s for real this time, though, I promise, guys. I’m not fucking crying wolf again, I swear.

Disclaimer: I own nothing, I make no money.

From Instep to Heel

Chapter Sixteen: Splinter

"Perhaps he really is a Targaryen – to the bone. But he's finished with apologizing about it. If this is what they've made him, then this is what he'll be.

If treason is what they expect, then _by the gods_ , he will give it to them." - Jon and Sansa. Like the curve of the horizon, when the moon breaks from beneath its bow.

* * *

"Here." Jon tips the cup toward Bran's lips, wiping up the spill of water at his chin when he pulls it back, and Bran nods appreciatively, his hand still at Jon's wrist.

"I'm alright," he says, urging Jon to set the cup back down.

Jon settles into his seat at Bran's bedside, the cup forgotten along the side table.

Bran settles more comfortably into his furs. "Thank you," he says, wincing slightly at the tug on his bandaged leg when he adjusts.

Jon only nods, swallowing tightly, his eyes glancing over to Sansa's prone form along the bed beside Bran's, tucked securely beneath the furs. It's been nearly a day and a half she's been unconscious. Jon sighs, rubbing a hand down his face in exhaustion. "She should be here – helping you with this. _She_ should be here," he gets out tightly.

Bran sighs. "And she will, when she wakes."

Jon clenches his jaw, shaking his head. His eyes bead with wetness instantly. He drops his head into his hands, elbows resting along his knees and he lets out a ragged breath, a worn exhale. "Gods, she nearly – I nearly – " He doesn't have the heart to finish such a sentence.

_Nearly lost her_.

He hasn't the heart to even imagine it.

He remembers rushing to Measter Gregor's before the man could even make it to their chambers, Sansa's unconscious body terrifyingly light in his arms, the bloodied seat of her dress soaking through to his sleeve, and how he sobbed, how he tore through the halls screaming for the maester, chest aching, throat raw, muscles quaking as he ran with her in his arms. How lifeless she'd been when he dropped her, as gently as he could, onto the cot in Gregor's clinic, backing away to let the old man and his acolytes do their work, watching, always watching, and gasping, crumbling – begging her to just open her eyes _please gods just open your eyes open your eyes Sansa please please OPEN YOUR EYES –_

Jon closes his eyes at the memory, keeps his head in his hands, tries to focus on the faint sound of her breathing, the slow intake, the shallow exhale. Over and over. In and out. Over and over. This becomes his constant, his world.

He doesn't know what he'll do if it should ever stop.

"Jon."

He takes a deep breath, lets it rattle against his palms. He pulls his head up just slightly, fingers stilled splayed over his cheeks, eyes meeting Bran reluctantly.

Bran keeps his gaze resolute. "She _will_ be here. When she wakes," he repeats. And he sounds so sure.

Jon lets out a rueful chuckle at the tone, his hands slipping from his face, hanging limp between his knees now. "I don't..." The words crack, shutter away.

"She's stronger than you think."

"Stronger than poison?" The question sounds harsher than he intends, but it's not her brother he intends his ire at. His gaze softens at the reminder. "A person can be strong, sure, they can be willful and passionate and all these things and still – poison does not discriminate. It does not care about _character_. It kills. That's all it does. It just... it just kills." His words hollow out at the end, a bitter sigh, his hands returning to his face.

A heavy silence pervades the air.

(Over and over. In and out. He listens for it, always.)

"Poison," Bran says, seeming to mull the word over as he says it. "And you're certain?"

He scoffs then, rearing back, hands leaving his face once more. "This wasn't simply an accident. This wasn't simply a miscar – " He stops then, the vehemence lodged in his throat. He glares at Bran, eyes still wet. His jaw ticks, teeth aching where they clench. He tears his gaze away finally. "No, this was poison. That amount of blood? That sudden and that violent? No. Someone _did this_ to her," he snarls, head shaking.

Bran curls his hands along the edge of blanket at his waist, looking down at it a moment. He purses his lips, takes a breath. He looks back up at Jon. "Was she with child?" he asks softly.

Jon blinks at him, breath stilling in his chest.

'Was'. Not ' _is_ '.

Jon's face crumbles instantly, breath hitching on a cry, shoulders slumping in on him with the weight of it. His hand goes over his face, as though to hold it in, as though to slow the tide, but it washes from him instantly, without reprieve, without end. "Oh gods," he croaks out, shaking with it. "Oh gods, how am I supposed to tell her?" he cries. He buries his face in his hands, tries to bite back his sobs, his head shaking back and forth. Disbelieving. "How am I supposed to tell her we lost it?" he wails.

In a way, he'd known. Before Maester Gregor pulled him aside, with Sansa slumbering in the next room, dosed with more than a few of the maester's herbs – he'd known.

" _I think she'll make it, if she can pull through these next few hours. But my Lord, I must tell you. The babe... there was no saving the babe. I'm sorry I couldn't do more."_

Jon had stared at the man with unseeing eyes. Just listening. Standing there. Wavering. Taking it all in. His eyes had shifted toward the bed where she laid, her brow sweat-lined, her body limp. And he'd nodded. Just nodded. "I understand," he'd said.

He'd sat down at her side then, took a wet towel to her chin, cleaned the blood from her as though it had never been. He did his best to feed her the tonic Maester Gregor gave him, slipping it between her chapped, parted lips by the spoonful, wiping the drizzle that escaped down the side of her mouth. And then he smoothed the hair back from her face, tucked the furs around her, sat there watching her for an immeasurable amount of time, before he drew in a sharp, long breath, his lungs quaking with it, and everything seemed to come down at once. He'd reached for her hand, crying, crying for her, holding her hand to his face, nuzzling into it, pleading, and crying, crying, _crying_.

But there will never be enough tears for such grief.

"How do I tell her?" he manages on a shaky exhale, fingers curling over his brow.

"Jon," Bran tries to comfort, his hand rising, and falling on nothing. "I'm so sorry."

It repeats. Over and over.

_I'm sorry_.

In and out. Over and over.

_I'm sorry_.

It repeats.

(But Jon only wants it to stop – just...stop.)

Just then, something _does_ stop.

Jon stiffens at the realization, going still. His ears strain for the familiar sound of her steady breathing. It doesn't come. He glances up when a hoarse sigh breaks along the air instead, ragged and disused. His eyes land on Sansa as she stirs.

Jon nearly vaults over Bran's bed in his haste to return to Sansa's side, stumbling into the seat at her bedside, hands grasping at her own, eyes wide and wonderous on her face as she blinks once, twice, moans lowly beneath some hidden pain. And then she opens her eyes.

Jon meets her gaze ardently, brows cinching together in a painful hope, the tears still hot on his lids. "Sansa?" he asks, hardly daring to breathe the word.

She moans again, shifting slightly, blinking back the haze. Blinking again. Eyes focusing in the late afternoon light. She stares up at him. He stares down at her. Her mouth begins to tremble.

"Sansa," he tries again, barely more than a whisper, the name caught in his throat like the edge of dusk, like water-logged wood. It splinters away – sodden and heavy. "Sansa," he cries, and something joyful slips in just then – unintended. He gasps beneath the force of it, a disbelieving laugh breaking from him.

She furrows her brows, blinking furiously. And then she smacks her dry lips, tries for words, swallows back that uneven breath, that quake in her lungs. "Jon," she manages, a fierce, brilliant smile catching at the ends of her lips, tugging further, further, until it spreads wide, before it cracks at the edges, weighted and tear-stained, her face falling with the remembrance, her arms going wide, ignoring the heavy ache of them and the exhausted lull of her body and the still vibrant rack of pain through her limbs, simply _reaching_ , for him – for him, for him, for him.

Jon reaches back, winding his arms around her, tugging her up into his chest, letting her sigh into his throat, hands firm at her back, along her neck, bracing her to him, cradling her.

"Jon," she cries.

"I'm here," he says into her hair, swaying with the weight of her.

She starts to shake, her fingers curling into the tunic at his back. "Jon," she says again.

"I'm here," he hushes. "I'm not going anywhere."

_How does he tell her?_ he had wondered.

But when she grips at him tighter, when she sobs into his chest, when she quakes beneath him, when her wail breaks through the air like something wounded and raging – he thinks maybe she knows.

But Jon can only hold her.

In and out. Over and over.

(His constant.)

"I'm not going anywhere," he croaks again, hand trembling in her hair.

He thinks surely she knows.

* * *

"Do you need anything?" Jon asks, his fingers tracing the length of her jaw.

Sansa burrows further into the sheets, eyes slipping shut. "I'm alright."

Jon lays beside her, hesitant at first to encroach on her space, but when she had tugged him onto the cot in a needful fervency, hands curled tight in the tunic at his chest, curling into him when he stretched out alongside her, her forehead falling to his chest, his arms winding round her, well –

He's fairly certain he couldn't deny her anything at this point.

Sansa sighs, lashes fluttering. A heavy scoff leaves her, fingers curling tighter along his tunic. "No, I'm not alright," she corrects.

Jon's hand retreats from her jaw, reaching around her back instead, cradling her to him. "I'm here."

"Yes, but _here_ is exactly the problem."

Jon clenches his jaw, his hand smoothing down her back. She's so pale. So utterly pale. Her lips are chapped, dry. Dark rings settle beneath her eyes like half-healed bruises. He barely manages not to tremble at the sight of her.

"I'm scared, Jon," she manages through a quake. "I'm scared, and I can't stay here. Not anymore. In this keep, in this family. I can't do it." She buries her face in his chest, heaving a tear-laced sigh against his collar bone. "I'm sorry, Jon, I can't... I can't do it anymore."

"I know," he gets out roughly, holding her tighter. "I know."

"What are we going to do?"

"I'm going to get us out," he says.

She stills in her shaking, pulling back just enough to meet his eyes, brows furrowed sharply. "Jon... how can you...?"

"I'll get us out. I swear to you. Aegon will have to let us go," he says, a measure of surety seeping into him that hadn't been there before.

Sansa's eyes darken, her mouth tipping into a frown. "I don't trust him. I don't trust any of them," she bites out.

"Do you trust _me_?" His hand slips up to her hair, cradles the back of her head. His eyes are imploring on hers.

She shifts her eyes back and forth between his, her mouth parting. "You know I do," she whispers.

Jon swallows tightly, taking courage at the reminder. "Then trust that I will get us out."

She stares up at him, red wisps of hair matted to her forehead with sweat, a permanent etch of pain along her features.

Her body is still fighting. Still weak.

It lights a fury in him that is unspeakable. And yet, the hand he holds to the back of her head is gentle beyond measure.

Sansa stares up at him for long moments, her lip pulled between her teeth. She looks down to his chest, keeps her gaze fixed there, takes a long and slow breath.

His hand slips back down to the small of her back, curling there. His voice is rough and uneven when he finally speaks. "Sansa, the babe..."

"I don't want to talk about it."

Jon swallows tightly, looking down at her. Her gaze is harsh on his chest, unblinking. Her hand stays curled in his tunic.

"Sansa..."

"I _don't..._ want to talk about it." She releases a shallow breath. "Not now, at least."

Another bout of silence eases between them. Jon sighs into her hair. "Okay." His hand slides smoothly up and down the length of her back. "Okay."

Some of her stiffness eases out at his answer. "Thank you."

Her voice is so small. So tired and worn. Jon keeps his grief tucked securely behind clenched teeth. "You should rest."

She has very little left in her to say otherwise, and so she only nods, her hand uncurling from his tunic to bunch in the sheets beneath her.

"Rest," he says, starting to pull from her.

Her hand snaps back to his tunic, holding him there, her eyes blinking widely up at him. "Will you stay?"

He hates the tremor of fear in her voice. "Aye, I'll stay," he gets out gruffly, easing back down.

She sighs in relief, eyes slipping shut once more, shoulders easing out their tension.

Jon brushes the hair from her sweat-lined temple. "I'll stay," he promises lowly, watching her.

And he does stay – until she is asleep once more. And then he stays a while longer, just watching her, fingers trailing from her brow to her cheek, down the line of her jaw, clenched in her worried sleep, then down the length of her arm, and back up, tracing the lines of her, committing it to memory.

When he is sure she won't be disturbed, he disentangles from her, easing himself off the cot beside her. He releases her hand reluctantly, tucking it back beneath the furs. He takes a breath, lets it to air. And then he stalks toward the door.

Bran glances up from his lean along his propped-up pillows, hand stilling over the parchment he'd been writing on. "Jon?"

Jon ignores him, a singular focus coming over him. He pulls the door back, dark gaze meeting the startled guard that greets him outside the threshold.

"M'lord?"

"Has Maester Gregor sent any word of his findings?" The question is low and terse, nearly a bite.

The guard shakes his head. "No, m'lord. He's still convening with the other maesters."

Jon nods, brow furrowing. "Summon Theon Greyjoy." he says, eyes flicking to the guard opposite him. "And no one else, aside from him and Maester Gregor, gets through this door, do you understand me?" The words are even and low, a quiet ferocity to them that keeps the guards muted, only fervent nods sent Jon's way. Jon releases the door and stalks back through the clinic to the threshold on the opposite side of the room leading to Measter Gregor's adjoining solar. He passes Bran and Sansa's beds swiftly.

"Jon, what are you going to do?" Bran asks urgently.

"What I have to," he snaps, making his way into the solar and settling at the vacant desk. He finds Maester Gregor's parchment easily enough, dips his quill into ink, and sets to writing. He's nearly finished when he hears a knock on the door, peering up to find Theon lingering in the threshold, eyes falling to the missive beneath Jon's hand.

But Jon returns to his work, scribbling out the last of his message, leaning back to look at it. "Greyjoy," he greets, gaze never leaving the desk.

"I am summoned," Theon gets out testily, a sneer to his voice.

Jon lets the ink set a while longer, his silence a practiced, terse thing. He glances up finally, fingers folding around the ends of the thin parchment. "Yes. I have a task for you."

Theon laughs, a dark, rueful sound, clipped at the end. "Forgive me, my lord, but I'm not particularly inclined to serve you at the moment."

Jon settles his dark stare on him. "Your inclinations are inconsequential at the moment. And regardless," he grinds out, folding the ends of the parchment over, and taking the spoon of hot wax from its stand to pool over the closed edges, "This serves the Lady Sansa, not myself."

Theon pushes off the threshold and walks further into the room. "Oh, serving the Lady Sansa now, are we? Last I checked, you weren't doing too grand a job of that."

Jon shoots a swift glare his way, returning his attention to the letter, pressing his seal into the hot wax. "Your concern for my wife is touching, improper as it is."

"Well, at least one of us is concerned."

"You overstep your bounds, Greyjoy," he says lowly, rising from his seat.

Theon sneers at him, stalking closer. "If you recall, _my lord_ , it wasn't you that saved her life in Stannis' attack."

Jon grinds his teeth, fingers curling into fists at his side. "I'm well aware." And it takes everything of him to say it.

"Then perhaps you can tell me how she ended up here, hmm? Perhaps you can tell me where you were when she was nearly killed? Again! Tell me how you were _serving_ her?" he barks, arms stretching wide. "Because I've yet to see it, my lord!"

Jon storms around the edge of the desk, closing in on him. "You have _no idea_ what I've - "

"She trusted you!" Theon yells, a finger raised toward him. "She trusted you to protect her and she nearly _died_ for it."

"Don't you think I know that?" Jon bellows.

Theon stops, staring at him, his chest heaving.

Jon barely manages not to shake in his fury, his fists still held tight to his sides. His nostrils flare under his deep breaths, eyes narrowed on Theon. "Don't you think I fucking know that?" It comes out clipped and ragged at the end and he must tear his gaze away from Theon's before the break can overtake him.

Theon rears back slightly, brows furrowed over his sharp eyes.

Jon moves his heavy stare to the far wall, stepping off to the side, trying to rein in his labored breaths. "She's out there in that bed – alone and in pain, because of me. Because of _me_ ," he gets out on a croak, mouth clamping over the words. And oh, how they sting. To say them to a Greyjoy of all people. To admit to it before a _Greyjoy_.

Jon didn't think he could sink any lower. And yet here he is.

" _What are you going to do?"_

" _What I have to."_

Jon's eyes slip shut. It's a sour slice of shame that lights his tongue. But he will swallow it. He will swallow it back for _her_. And he will do what he must.

"Do you think me so unfeeling?" Jon asks him, a coarse whisper.

Silence greets him. A long stretch of it. Jon opens his eyes to glance at Theon at his peripheral.

The man is glaring down at the floor, hands bunched into fists at his side. "No, I do not, my lord," he gets out roughly, at length, as though the words were a pain to utter.

And perhaps they are. As much as Jon's.

He turns fully to Theon then, stepping before him. "I will never be comfortable with the feelings you clearly harbor for my wife. I will never be comfortable knowing she still cares for you in some regard."

Theon looks back up at him then, gaze narrowed.

"But I am not ungrateful." It's like gravel in his throat. Jon swallows thickly, trying to get the words to air. "When you saved her, when you..." He stops, dips his head down, eases some of the tension from his trembling fists. "I will never forget it," he vows softly. He looks back up, meets Theon's gaze. "Which is why you are the only person in this city I trust to save her now."

Theon blinks at that, mouth parting. Hesitation wars across his features, his eyes flicking between Jon's.

Jon lifts his chin. "So," he begins, lips pursed tight, "Will you help me?"

He thinks about that day in the courtyard, looking across the field of bodies to where Theon stood, bow in hand, arm still pulled back in release, his own chest heaving, eyes wide.

He thinks about the relief that flooded his chest at the sight, at the weight of Sansa in his arms, at knowing there were those in her life that would not see her fall. No matter the cost.

And he thinks he can live with Theon Greyjoy being in love with his wife, if that's what it means. Perhaps it's selfish of him. Perhaps it's just another way he's learned to manipulate, to use one's emotions against them. Perhaps he really is a Targaryen – to the bone.

But he's finished with apologizing about it. If this is what they've made him, then this is what he'll be.

If treason is what they expect, then _by the gods_ , he will give it to them.

"Will you help me?" he asks again, more a demand than anything.

Theon continues staring at him silently, shoulders pulling back. He lets out a shallow scoff, hand wiping over his mouth, eyes lifting to the ceiling, and then drifting back down to meet Jon's. His mouth is a harsh frown. "What is it you want me to do?" he grinds out.

Jon doesn't give him a chance to rethink it, turning swiftly back toward the desk, grabbing the sealed letter. He turns back and hands it to Theon. "Ride to Winterfell. Ride now, as fast your horse can carry you."

Theon looks down at the letter, taking it with tentative fingers. His brows bunch in confusion. "And this is...?"

"My treason."

Theon's gaze snaps up to Jon's. "What?"

"Every two days, you will receive a raven from me. If ever you do not receive that raven, then you are to hand this to Lord Stark to read," he says, motioning toward the letter in Theon's hand.

Theon cocks a brow at him. "What does it mean if you do not send a raven?"

"It means I am dead."

Theon lets out a disbelieving laugh, stalking away from him, and then stalking back. "My lord, this is..." He shakes the letter in his hand. "What are you planning?"

Jon winds his hands behind his back, head tilting as he looks at Theon, an even stare to his dark eyes, unblinking. "You will receive a raven every two days while Sansa and I make our way North. So, until we are safely at Winterfell, you will guard that missive with your life."

Theon swallows thickly, eyes drifting back to the ominous letter.

Jon sighs. "Pray to the gods Lord Stark will never have need to open it."

Theon shifts his gaze back to Jon, appraising him. And then he stuffs the letter into a pocket, nodding once, swiftly and decidedly. "I will do this," he says simply.

Jon doesn't let the flutter of relief he feels between his ribs rattle him any further. Instead, he reaches out for Theon's shoulder, urging him toward the door and back through the clinic. "Good. Now, you must – "

"My lord, I've returned."

Jon glances up at Maester Gregor's announcement, finding him in the doorway as the guards shut the door behind him. Jon nods his greeting, turning swiftly back to Theon. "You must go – _now._ And you must go unseen. Lady Sansa's life depends on your urgency and your secrecy, do you understand?"

Theon nods once more. "I do." He glances over to Bran, who's looking between the two with a plaintive expression.

"What is going on?" the boy asks, exasperated, as he drops his quill and parchment back to his lap.

Theon clenches his jaw, looking back to Jon. "She asked me to protect him."

"If you succeed in this task, then it will save them both," he assures him.

Theon blows a shaky breath from his lips, steeling himself. "This treason of yours better be worth it," he gets out on a sly laugh, a reluctant smirk tugging at his lips.

"All successful treason is," he swears, low enough that only the two of them might hear.

Theon keeps his gaze a moment longer, seeming to search for something, and then he's turning away, back toward the door with a polite farewell for Gregor and Bran, eyes lingering only a moment longer on the boy in the cot.

Jon gives Gregor an uneasy smile then, ushering him toward the solar. "Maester, what have you discovered?"

"Am I not to be included?" Bran asks sharply from his place in his bed.

Both men glance back at him. Jon humors him with a tender smile. "Bran..."

"She's _my_ sister, you know. As much as she is your wife. And I deserve to know who did this to her just as well as you," he says, eyes demanding on Jon's.

Jon can't help the chuckle that leaves him, even when there is no mirth behind it. Because yes, the boy is right. How simple of him to think otherwise?

Gregor looks to Jon, a reluctant expression crossing his face. "My lord, this is a delicate matter."

Jon nods, turning them toward Bran's bed instead now. "All the more reason her family should hear it." They stop just on the side of Bran's bed, and Jon helps the older man into a seat before taking his own.

The maester sighs, shaking his head. "My lord, after examining her blood, and her symptoms, I must tell you that the lady has most certainly been poisoned."

"Yes," Jon scoffs, "I figured as much when she started coughing blood." At the Maester's grave look, Jon shakes his head, grinding his teeth. "Apologies, Maester. Please, do go on."

Gregor sighs, winding his hands before him. "We've been able to ascertain the poison as Red Ausmothis. It's a plant some maesters use, in small doses mind you, to help clear the bloodstream. But in large amounts, it can cause a patient to bleed excessively, as it also thins the blood, see."

Bran peers up at him from the bed, brows sharpening down over his intent eyes. "Yes, but how was it administered to my sister?"

The maester gives a slight shrug of the shoulder. "Ingested, I assume. Through food or drink."

Jon's mouth purses into a tight line, his gaze shifting away. "And how quickly does it act?"

"Rather quickly, my lord. I would wager she'd been dosed that very morning."

Jon keeps a tight clamp on his fury, curling and uncurling his fists. "I see." He blows a shallow breath through his teeth, eyes flicking over to Sansa's sleeping form. A pain ricochets through him, his chest constricting at the sight.

"But my lord," the maester begins, his hands wringing themselves as he glances between the two of them. "There is something more troubling."

Jon's gaze whips sharply to his. "What is it?"

He sucks a breath in, face twisting into uncertainty. "I've said that some maesters use this plant, yes, and well – you see, I myself have used it."

Bran leans forward just a touch, eyes riveted to the maester. "What are you saying?"

"My stores are emptied of it, my lord."

Jon blinks at him, head rearing back. His ire flares hotter, sparks an unease in his chest. He shifts his weight in his seat, gaze hard on the man. "You think..."

Maester Gregor swallows. "I think whoever did this stole from my stores, yes. And recently. Very recently."

Jon takes a long, slow breath in, mind reeling. He stands from his seat, paces away. He braces his hands to his hips, a heavy exhale leaving him. He wipes a hand down his face, paces back toward the two of them. "What are you trying to say, Maester Gregor?" The words come out strangled.

Because no.

No, he will not think it.

The maester's eyes drift down to his hands as they wind around his chain in thought. A worried sigh leaves him. "The peculiar thing is, my lord, only two people have been under my care here, aside from the Lady Sansa, of course. Only two people, as were Prince Aegon's – apologies, _His Grace's_ – orders."

"Yes, of course," Jon spits, a hand raked through his hair. "Only members of the royal family."

Can't be seen by outsiders, of course. Can't make their weakness known. Shut them up. Lock them away. Everything is safe behind closed doors, right?

_Right?_

Jon seethes where he stands, a quiet, thundering rage seeping between his ribs.

The old man looks up at him with concern. "Yes, exactly. Only Lord Bran here," he says, motioning to the nearly immobilized boy, "And..."

"Rhaenys," Jon hisses.

His fury is a silent, bone-gripping beast.

Bran is shaking his head, eyes frantic. "Wait. Wait, I think..."

"Rhaenys," Jon says again, a shaky hand wiping over his mouth.

No. No, he _cannot_ think it.

"But my lord," Gregor begins, twisting in his seat to look up at Jon, face drawn in concern and perplexity, "What reason could the Princess Rhaenys ever have to harm Lady Sansa? Or your unborn child?"

A red haze overtakes Jon. A quiet stillness. His jaw aches where he clenches his teeth, nearly rattling in his skull. Nearly frothing at the mouth with it. This thundering rage. This rancid hate. "Yes," he seethes, already stalking toward the door, overcome – and undone. "What reason shall she give, I wonder," he snarls, a violence coursing through his veins, rioting in his blood.

It's shockingly welcomed – how his hands itch for her throat. How he yearns to smother that vengeful, resentful pulse beneath his own palm.

"Jon, wait!"

But Bran's voice is already distant in his mind, already drowned out by the rushing in his ears.

Because this is what they've made him.

So, this is what he'll be.

Fire and blood, it is, then.

* * *

When Sansa wakes, it's with eyes peeled swiftly and widely toward the ceiling. She blinks. Blinks again. Lets the breath shudder through her.

And all at once she remembers. Bloodied sheets. A crippling pain. The desolate cry falling from her lips. The inexplicable hollowness that follows.

Her mouth parts, a soundless gasp breaking from her, her hands gripping the sheets beneath her in trembling fists.

All at once she _remembers_.

Before she can let the cry overtake her, she narrows her gaze on the high, grey ceiling, finds a spot where the arches meet, focuses on it. Glares and glares and glares at it. Breathes in. Breathes out. Keeps her eyes fixed to that far, grey spot.

Lets the grief bleed from her bones.

She reminds herself that she isn't safe here. She will _never_ be safe here.

Later, she tells herself, nearly biting through her lip to keep the pain at bay.

Cry later, she swears, even as the tears bead at the corners of her eyes.

(Cry when you are safe. Until then...)

Sansa sucks a sobering breath through her lips, stirring beneath the furs, her body aching from its recent fight. Her vision swims when she tries to sit up.

"Sansa!"

She flicks her gaze to the bed across from hers, meeting Bran's worried eyes instantly.

"Bran," she croaks, throat dry from disuse. A hand goes to her pounding head.

"Thank the gods. I've been calling to you," he says urgently, still bedridden.

Sansa blinks at him in confusion, drawing her hand away from her forehead when the pain dulls into a vague ache. She draws further up, braces her weight on her elbow as she looks at him. "Calling me?"

Bran nods. "Sansa, I think... I think Jon is in danger."

She narrows her eyes on him, pushes up from her elbow, body heavy, until she can swing her legs over the side of the bed, hands braced along the edge to hold her. "What do you mean?"

A worried look crosses Bran's features. "I don't want you to over-exert yourself," he mutters.

"Bran," she says, taking a smooth, even breath to steady herself, "You wouldn't have tried to wake me if it wasn't important."

He gives her a sigh, face drawn tight.

She offers an encouraging nod, straightening somewhat. "So, what do you mean?"

"You were poisoned."

"Yes," she says through chapped, pursed lips. "Yes, that wasn't exactly hard to deduce."

"But Sansa, Maester Gregor is sure it was the Red Ausmothis from his own stores, recently stolen. Very recently."

She can only nod, teeth clenching. "As in..."

Bran hesitates a moment, turning more fully toward her, as much as he can. "Jon thinks it was the Princess Rhaenys."

Sansa glances away, wipes a stray strand of hair back behind her ear, a short, shallow breath leaving her. "When she was here, after...after the attack."

"Yes."

Her eyes slip shut. She'd considered it after all. How could she not? The way Rhaenys had looked at her as she wiped the blood from her hands in this very room, the cold, detached way she'd glanced to her stomach, the dark, unblinking stare she'd sent her away with.

" _To kill a living thing – it's not so hard, after all."_

The words lodge in her chest, the terrifying remembrance shaking her. But then –

" _She was right."_

Sansa stops, breath hitching in her throat. Her eyes snap open along the far wall, slipping slowly back toward her brother. "Bran," she gets out tremulously.

"But I saw her," he says, head shaking.

Sansa stares wide-eyed at him, barely breathing. "What?"

His words are fervent, feverish, rattling off his tongue like an avalanche, like a mountain coming down on her. "I thought it was a dream. Some drug-induced dream in the night, still drunk off that milk of the poppy, but I woke after dark at some point, saw a figure across the room, for just a moment, just a _moment_ before sleep overtook me again, but I saw her, I _know_ it, I wasn't mistaken. That white hair – "

"Bran," she chokes out, the breath stealing from her.

He meets her gaze. "I saw Daenerys."

Sansa feels sick. Her head swims. She braces a hand to her forehead, palm settling over one eye. She bends over, eyes squeezing fiercely shut. "Bran, I..." There's bile at the back of her tongue.

" _You see, Lady Sansa, I was a Targaryen before I was ever a wife, before I was ever a princess or a mother. I will always be a Targaryen, a dragon. But you will never understand this."_

The bile rises high in her throat, choking her. "Oh gods," she moans out, pushing herself to her feet shakily, wavering at the sudden vertigo.

"Sansa!" Bran warns, hand out-reaching. "Sansa, sit down. You're still not well."

"I have to go to him," she mutters lowly, almost to herself, a hand reaching for the cot to steady herself.

"Dammit, Sansa, I didn't tell you this so you could hurt yourself trying to do something foolish," he admonishes, trying – and failing – to reach for her from his position in the bed.

"Don't you see, Bran?" she hisses, whirling toward him, stumbling slightly. "He thinks it's Rhaenys."

"I know," Bran grinds out. "I know but – "

"If he hurts her," she says, head shaking, hand falling from her face as she straightens, vision easing back into focus, "If he hurts his sister, Bran, he will never forgive himself for it. _Never_ ," she swears, already gathering her skirts in her hands.

"Sansa, please, wait," he pleads, face overtaken in worry.

"I have to go to him," she whispers, turning for the door, gait slow and measured, taking her strength where she can. She braces a hand to the threshold.

" _They will always be the stepping stones to my glory."_

Sansa snarls beneath her breath, swinging the door wide.

She will never be but a blight beneath another's shadow, this she swears.

* * *

"Tell me you did not do this," Jon urges brokenly as he lets the door to Rhaenys' solar settle closed behind him.

His sister rises from her seat at the window in an unearthly calm, watching him.

He stares at her, long and hard, chest already heaving, fury already staining his lungs. "Tell me it wasn't you," he seethes.

Rhaenys cocks her head at him, lips pursed tight. "Is Lady Sansa... unwell?"

He thunders toward her suddenly, upending the side table he passes in his fury, the crash resounding in the room, and she blinks sharply at the sudden motion, spine straightening, chin lifting when he stops just before her, half-reeling, the anger of his heaving breath painting her cheeks. "Don't you even say her name," he snarls, eyes wild on her.

Rhaenys lets out a breath, looking up into his face, and something flickers over her features, faltering. But she swallows it back quickly, squares her jaw.

"I didn't think you could sink so low," he gets out, disgusted.

She glares up at him. "Oh, 'low' am I? _Low?_ "

"Yes," he seethes, eyeing her.

She shakes her head, glare never diminishing. "That's rich, coming from you. You have all you've wanted now, don't you?" she throws at him, arms branching out, encompassing. "A place in this family. Acknowledgement. A pretty little wife. A _babe_." And then she scoffs, features screwing into something ugly, arms dropping back to her sides. "Except not a babe any longer, huh?"

"Don't you fucking – "

"And yet I still have nothing!" she screeches suddenly, stepping into him, eyes wide and dark and smoke-lit. Her hot breath pants from her, her own fury taking root.

Jon's fists shake at his side, his whole body a tight, rigid line, a quaking fury, boiling just beneath his skin. "Sansa was never a threat to you – never a threat to the love I held for you," he spits at her, the words rancid on his tongue, and he watches her blink fiercely at him, her jaw quaking at the ring of his words. He curls his lip in distaste, his chest constricting. "You killed that love all on your own," he chokes out.

She swallows tightly, chin still lifted, but she cannot stop the tremor from lighting across her skin, or the way her brows dip together in pain, or the instant sheen of wetness over her eyes.

(Perhaps moons ago, such an image might have stricken him.)

An ache burrows into his chest – an ache of years and years and endless, relentless years. The ever-long ache of loneliness.

(All of them, just grasping blindly in the dark, missing each other by miles.)

He wishes now, that he remembered what it was like to hold affection for this woman. He wishes he remembered what it meant to need his sister.

"Had you any love for me at all, even in the slightest," he grinds out, throat constricting at the words, eyes already tearing, "You would not have done this."

Rhaenys rears back, face still pinched tight. "I have done _nothing_ unwarranted."

Jon snarls in her face, chest heaving. "My child is dead because of you. My wife – "

"I have done _nothing_ ," she hisses, voice cracking at the end, a hand pressed to her head, a shuddering breath leaving her. "Nothing," she whispers.

Jon scoffs – harsh and jagged and ugly. "You're a vile woman, Rhaenys."

Her head snaps up at his words, face blanking out.

And it's just so sharp in his chest, so cutting and bitter and inescapable. It claws its way up through his throat, hooks its claws at his ribs, anchors there like a foul thing – ready to bleed him from the inside out, from heart to tongue, from lungs to mouth – so that he can barely bring the words to air. "And I regret ever having loved you." he manages through grit teeth, ignoring the instant, painful remorse that lances through him at the words.

Rhaenys stares at him, still as stone. She licks her lips, takes a breath, tries to smother the quake of it with a laugh. A dark, mirthless laugh. She squares her jaw, tears hot on her lids.

(It is the shift – the rupture. Years from now, they will look back on this moment and they will know.

They will _know_.)

"Yes," she says, low and even and breathless. "Yes, paint me your villain. Your tormentor. That's what I am, aren't I? The source of all your struggles. The cause of all your grief. So then strike me down, brother," she says, arms stretching wide, voice a quiet hiss of air. "Take your revenge," she urges, eyes narrowing intently on him. "I imagine it hurts, doesn't it? To have watched it bleed out of her?"

Jon blinks back the hot wetness at his eyes. "Stop," he growls out, teeth clenching.

But she only advances, closing the already narrow distance between them. "It's not easy to watch what you love being torn away from you, is it?"

"I said stop," he warns lowly, chest heaving.

She glares up at him, lip curling. "You're a damn fool, Jon. You should have always known how this would end."

The rage is smarting along his tongue. "I swear I will – "

"I hope it hurt."

"Rhaenys - "

"And I'm glad it's dead," she spits.

(The rupture.)

His hand snaps toward her throat before he even realizes it, and then he's rushing her back with a roar until she collides with the wall, gasping, eyes blowing wide, hands grasping at his wrist.

"Shut your mouth!" he snarls in her face, fingers clenching at her throat as he leans in. "Shut your _fucking mouth!"_

Rhaenys arches against the wall as she tries to pull back from his grasp, a choked cough breaking from her lips, nails digging at his wrist. "Get _off_ me!"

But it's a white-hot rage that rushes through him, keeping her pinned there against the stone, unrelenting, unforgiving. He bares his teeth in an ugly snarl, hot breath splashing over her cheeks. "You nearly killed her!" he bellows, pressing her into the stone, voice rattling with the force of his fury.

"I _didn't_ ," she grits out, a hiss of air, eyes glaring hot and accusatory at him.

"I said to shut your fucking mouth," he bites out, eyes shifting wildly between hers, and his fingers flex over her throat – just barely. Just enough for him to feel the warm rush of blood beneath his grip, to feel the thrum of her strangled words beneath his hold. Enough to wonder what just a little more pressure would do – if maybe he could crush her windpipe beneath his palm.

His eyes flick down to his hand over her throat, breath still raking violently from him, snarl still tugging at his lips. And then he glances back toward her face, panting, quaking – consumed.

Her eyes flick between his, widening just a touch, a flash of fear crossing her features, a wet croak leaving her, and then she's shaking, clawing at his wrist, mouth parting in silent alarm.

(Just a little more pressure, and – )

"Jon," she whispers, eyes tearing. "Jon – "

"Jon!"

The door slams open behind him. He whips his head back to find Sansa braced against it, panting, sweat dotting her brow.

Her eyes blow wide at the scene before her, and she stills instantly, mouth parting.

Jon nearly releases Rhaenys entirely in his surprise, straightening as his eyes take in Sansa's weakened lean against the threshold. "Sansa," he chokes out.

Her eyes shift frantically between them, and then her face draws into hardness, pushing off the door to stalk toward them. "Jon, don't do this, please."

A quiver of regret ricochets through him, his hand loosening around Rhaenys' throat. He swallows back the shame on an uneasy inhale. "You should be resting," he gets out in a dark whisper, turning back to face Rhaenys. His rage isn't quieted so easily.

His sister glares back at him, fingers still locked around his wrist.

"Jon, please, you're scaring me," Sansa urges, finally making her way to him, hands wrapping around his arm, tugging him away from Rhaenys and toward her. " _Jon_ , please."

His tears gather in earnest now, lip trembling as the breath catches along his tongue. "What she did..." He cannot even manage the words, his throat constricting, his vision blurring from the tears.

"I didn't!" Rhaenys snaps, huffing and impatient.

And all his rage, all his years-long heartache comes tunneling down into a pinprick focus. "I'm tired of your lies. Your manipulations," he bites out, voice rough.

Sansa's hands grip more forcefully around his arm, one of them gliding up his chest and then to his cheek, urging him to look at her. "She didn't," Sansa gasps, head shaking, her own tears hot at the corners of her eyes. "She didn't, Jon, please, just – just listen to me."

Jon tears his gaze back to his wife. He blinks at her, his hand slowly opening at Rhaenys' throat, releasing her completely. He staggers back from the motion, and Rhaenys slides down the wall instantly, hands going to her throat. She drops to the floor unceremoniously, coughing through her curses. " _Gods_ , Jon," she spits through clenched teeth, indignant to the end.

But Jon is staring at Sansa now, body trembling, taking in the sight of her, struck suddenly at how small and weak and pale she looks. His hands go instinctively to her arms, cupping around her elbows as he tries to hold her up. "Sansa, what..."

"Listen to me, Jon, she – she's your _sister_ , and... and you don't want to do this, trust me, you – "

"She is _nothing_ to me if she hurt you," he swears vehemently, hands going for her face now, cradling her jaw in his hands, thumbs brushing at her cheeks.

She nearly crumples into him at the motion, eyes wet instantly, mouth parting.

The fierceness of his admission scares him and yet anchors him in equal measure. Because it's the truth, after all. It's the most unquestionable truth he knows.

Rhaenys goes quiet on the floor beside them.

Jon peers at Sansa with imploring eyes, the rage dulled in him suddenly, only a vague heaviness keeping him rooted there before her. Just the sight of her. Just the sureness of her, there in his arms, at the edge of his fingertips. Just the knowledge that she's here – _here,_ with him. Alive.

Just breathing her air –

The fury that had displaced him only moments ago settles into a low hum at the back of his mind, an uneasy but needed calm wrapping itself around his bones, thawing him out.

Sansa's hands wrap around his wrists, holding him tenderly. "I'm alright," she gets out on a whisper, voice clogged with tears. "I'm right here. I'm alright."

Jon's face crumbles at the words, at the fissure of pain he still recognizes crossing her features. And he knows she's still hurting. Knows her body's still fighting. "But you're not," he croaks out, thumb grazing against a fresh tear sliding down her cheek. His eyes rove her face. "You're not," he says brokenly.

Sansa swallows thickly, jaw clenching. She nods at him, taking a single, solid breath in. "I am, Jon. I promise. I'm not going anywhere."

His own words from earlier, reflected back. He curls in on her at the thought.

Jon's eyes drift down to her stomach instantly, a drop in his gut, the breath catching along his throat. He chokes out a sob. "But the babe..."

Her hands go for his face instantly, dragging his gaze back to hers, and then she's pressing into him, peering up into his face – fierce and fervent and yet still tear-lined. "We can try again," she promises him, brushing the curls back from his face with a tender touch. She offers a trembling smile. "We can – we can try again, Jon, because I'm okay. I'm okay and I'm _right_ _here_ , do you understand me? I'm right here. I'm not leaving you." She nods at him again, eyes shifting between his, sniffing back the tears. "I'm not leaving you, okay?"

A ragged breath leaves him, the force of it nearly winding him, and he drops his hands from her face to wind around her back, tugging her into his chest, sighing as he buries his face in her shoulder. Her arms link intrinsically around his neck, one hand buried in his hair, holding him to her.

"Sansa," he chokes out, and then there's an instant wave of revulsion rushing through him, pulling him from her, his eyes snapping to his sister. Realization at what he'd done, at what he'd let his anger do to him, branches through him like the slow pooling of ink in water. His tongue is heavy with the sickness, eyes widening. "Rhaenys, I...," he gets out hesitantly, arms slipping from around Sansa's waist.

She's staring up at him from her place on the floor, mouth a tight line, eyes wet. It's a face he's never seen before.

"Rhaenys - "

" _What_ is all this ruckus?" Aegon demands suddenly, throwing the doors to Rhaenys' solar wide and stalking into the room. Daenerys strides in just behind him, silk skirts in her hands, an expression of annoyance flitting across her features.

"Your Grace," Jon begins, but never gets to finish.

Sansa slips from him like a ghost. She's all the way across the room before he realizes what's happening. And then her hand goes flying, smacking Daenerys across the cheek so hard her head whips from it, the loud crack resounding in the still room.

The following silence is deafening.

Jon stares wide-eyed at his wife, at her trembling shoulders, her barred teeth, her furious gaze. Aegon stands in a similar stupor beside his own wife.

"Sansa," Jon croaks out, hands reaching emptily at air.

Daenerys' head lolls back to glare dangerously at Sansa, not even bothering to reach for her cheek, to hold the smarting, reddened flesh beneath her soft palm. She just glares at Sansa.

Jon feels his breath break into a million jagged pieces in his throat. "Sansa," he gets out hoarsely, stepping toward her.

And then Sansa's swinging again, a bone-splitting shriek escaping her as she launches herself at Daenerys, eyes red-rimmed and glinting. "You _monster_ ," she screeches.

Everything snaps back into motion at once – Jon rushing toward them, Daenerys howling her indignation, Aegon grabbing frantically for Sansa's wildly swinging fists, Rhaenys pushing herself up off the wall, blinking disbelievingly at the scene before her.

"Lady Sansa, _restrain yourself_ ," Aegon bellows, a hand closing vice-like around her wrist, dragging her off Daenerys as the other woman tries to pull from her reach, spitting her distaste.

"Your Grace, please!" Jon yells, trying to step between their fumbling forms when he finally makes it to them, one of his arms wrapping tight around Sansa's waist and dragging her back with him.

But she's raging hard now – raging and raging and _wailing_. "I should kill you!" she screams, grasping at Jon's back as he tries to haul her away, her eyes only for Daenerys. "I should rip that shriveled excuse of a heart from your chest, you wretched woman!"

"Sansa! Sansa!" Jon screams, fighting her fury.

"You are dangerously close to treason, do you understand me, Lady Sansa?" Aegon snaps, chest heaving. "To strike the queen..."

Sansa cries out in Jon's arms, her sudden strength waning, her body shaking uncontrollably. He tries to gather her in his arms, hushing her, reaching frantically for her face. "Sansa, Sansa, please, _talk to me_."

"She took my child from me!" she wails, eyes finally meeting Jon's - blown wide. Salt-tinged.

"What?" Jon asks, breath winded from him.

Aegon straightens in surprise, his jaw snapping shut.

Sansa slumps into Jon's arms, mouth quivering. She snaps heated eyes toward Daenerys once more. "The Red Ausmothis. It was her. It was her doing, my lord," she mutters darkly, fingers curling in Jon's sleeves as she fights to remain upright, sweat lining her brow again, body clearly weakened from her fit.

Rhaenys stumbles toward them, edging along Jon's periphery. "What did you say?" she whispers.

Aegon folds his hands behind his back, shoulders pulling taut. A crease of worry dips along his brow. "Lady Sansa, let me warn you that slandering the queen will not be tolerated."

Sansa heaves a steadying breath, eyes slipping to Aegon smoothly. "It cannot be slander if it's the truth. Your wife poisoned me, Your Grace."

"She's gone mad from her ordeal," Daenerys mutters at her husband's elbow, shaking her head. And then her face pinches tight, a visage of pity crossing her features. "I know such grief intimately."

" _You_ \- " Sansa starts, seething, catching herself on a heated breath, swallowing the rage back down. Her fist quakes along Jon's sleeve.

Jon brushes a loose strand of copper from Sansa's sweat-pebbled temple, his hand trembling. A new kind of rage begins to curl beneath his skin – quiet and cautious.

Daenerys breathes heavily just behind Aegon, her eyes never leaving Sansa.

Aegon swallows tightly, chin lifting. "Explain yourself, before I call the guards in to restrain you."

Sansa straightens against Jon, half-braced against him for support. "Maester Gregor said his stores of Red Ausmothis – the poison they found in my blood – went missing recently. But access to his clinic and his quarters had been strictly forbidden to all but a few, thanks to Your Grace," Sansa explains, gaze shifting to Aegon's for a brief moment.

Aegon narrows his gaze on her.

"It's why you suspected Rhaenys," Sansa continues softly, eyes flicking over Jon's face in concern.

He turns his head slightly, catching Rhaenys' form in the corner of his eye, never looking upon her fully. He curls his arm tighter around Sansa's waist in his hold of her.

Something jagged and shameful starts to coil in his gut.

Aegon glances to Jon, and then swiftly to Rhaenys, violet eyes sharp and narrowed. "Is this true?"

Jon nods mutely. Rhaenys stays stock still beside him, hands hanging limp at her sides.

Sansa lets out a rueful laugh, blinking back the tears. "But Rhaenys wasn't the only one to visit Maester Gregor's clinic at that time."

Daenerys scoffs, stepping forward finally. "Yes, I was there. You all saw me," she says, motioning toward the three of them. "I came to collect Rhaenys. It is hardly secret."

"And how convenient," Sansa says through clenched teeth. "That you put in an appearance that could clear yourself of suspicion – with Rhaenys to vouch for you."

Rhaenys steps closer, peering at Daenerys with a watchful expression. Her lips purse almost imperceptibly.

"But that wasn't the only time you were seen in the clinic," Sansa says.

"What other time could I possibly – "

"That same night, my brother saw you."

Daenerys' mouth clamps shut, her eyes narrowing so swiftly Jon almost misses it.

An eerie calm seems to overtake Sansa then, her trembling ceasing, her eyes intent and watchful. "You stole into the stores that night, took the Red Ausmothis, and poisoned me the following morning at breakfast. Perhaps you hadn't planned it to happen so soon. It was rather reckless of you, after, all. But what other opportunity would you have to so easily cast suspicion on Rhaenys? What other chance would you have to so cleanly get rid of a loose end?"

"What are you talking about?" Daenerys snaps, her chest heaving.

"It was the easiest way to silence Rhaenys. Whether the poison was just meant to induce a miscarriage, or whether you truly intended to kill me..." She trails off, her head shaking. "But you knew Jon would never forgive her if he thought she'd tried to kill me. You knew what would happen if Rhaenys was deemed the culprit," Sansa continues.

Jon tries desperately to ignore the sour shame curdling in his gut at the slow realization.

Daenerys scoffs. "This is ridiculous." Her breath comes uneasily though, her head shaking just a touch too forcefully. "Why in seven hells would I need to 'silence' Rhaenys?"

"Because you're the one who convinced her to kill Stannis," Sansa gets out on a dark exhale, swallowing thickly.

Jon glances to Rhaenys then instantly, but his sister is already staring at Daenerys, jaw tight, brows furrowed. It's a painfully hopeful expression.

"Daenerys," Rhaenys whispers.

It sounds almost like a plead. And he knows that voice. Has known it for years. It's a needful voice – lonely and desperate and grasping.

And suddenly everything slips into place – nauseatingly so.

Jon wipes a hand over his mouth, the breath raking from him.

"Whispering your putrid words of vengeance," Sansa mutters, disgusted, "Preying on her fear, manipulating it into a weapon for you, a finely honed blade. It was easy to convince her to kill him, wasn't it? When you saw how distraught she was?" Sansa glares at Daenerys, lip curling.

Rhaenys takes a hesitant step toward them, her hand reaching for Daenerys' silk sleeve, fingers curling unsurely along the smooth folds. "You... you told me I'd have no peace until he was dead."

Jon feels a wave of sickness rushing over him.

Daenerys whips her sharp-hewn gaze toward Rhaenys. "I said no such thing."

Rhaenys stiffens, her hand falling from Daenerys' sleeve, mouth tipped open.

Daenerys clears her throat, seeming to shake the trembling princess' distress off with a hard look. "You were hysterical. I highly doubt you could rightly recount anything said that day." Daenerys turns sharply back to Sansa. "And the same goes for your brother. He was half-unconscious from milk of the poppy, if I recall. How can you trust any account from him? And why would any of this benefit me, hmm? Stannis could have named his conspirator if Rhaenys hadn't taken matters into her own hands. Why would I want him killed, when we could have uncovered the plot against us with that information? You're weaving quite the tale here, Lady Sansa, but I'm afraid it makes very little sense."

Sansa takes in a heated breath at Jon's side, face setting to near stone as she determinedly wipes away a stray tear. She stares at Daenerys for only a moment, only a brief, stilted moment, and then she bares her teeth, nails curling along Jon's arm, chin jutted like a ravenous thing. "You wanted to kill him because you _were_ his conspirator."

Aegon steps forward then, a hand on Daenerys' arm, tugging her back. "That's enough, Lady Sansa," he grinds out, eyes dark on hers. "You're throwing around accusations now with hardly a shred of proof, and I'll not stand for it."

"Oh, you'll stand for it, Your Grace," Sansa bites out, pushing from Jon fully, standing straight-backed and unwavering.

"Sansa!" Jon hisses, reaching for her, trying to tug her back, but she shakes him off, stares the newly anointed king down.

Aegon's brows nearly hit his hairline, a disbelieving scoff escaping him. "You're braver than I thought," he says. And then his eyes narrow. "Or simpler," he scoffs.

But then Sansa's eyes shift quickly back to Daenerys, closing in on her and ignoring the king. "What did you promise Viserys, hmm? What did you guarantee him when you told him to hold his ships back at Stannis' approach? Was it a chance at the crown? Once your brother and husband and bastard nephew were dead, was that it? Or maybe you promised to annul his marriage to Cersei Lannister?"

"You should stop while you can, Lady Sansa," Daenerys mutters darkly.

"Lady Sansa," Aegon warns again, voice low, though it wavers now, just the slightest.

But Sansa can't stop, it seems. Could _never_ stop. She only pushes forward, glare intent on Daenerys, mouth a cutting line. "Perhaps _you_ should have stopped. Before you ever betrayed your own ambitions."

"And what ambitions are those?" she asks haughtily. "What more could I want, but what I already have? I was already deigned the next queen when I was betrothed to His Grace," she says, motioning to Aegon. "Why would I ever plot treason against my own self?" she laughs, head shaking with it.

"Because Father planned to wed Aegon and Rhaenys," Jon says suddenly, the breath winded from him, a kaleidoscope of thoughts assaulting him. "Because you were about to be set aside."

Aegon turns swiftly to Daenerys, eyes wide, shoulders stiff.

Rhaenys opens her mouth, but no words follow.

Daenerys squares her jaw, a hateful gaze lighting her features, a shadow of flame haunting the edges of her expression. And then she smirks, a dark laugh falling from her lips. "Rhaegar would never shame me like that."

"But he did," Rhaenys says suddenly, voice clogged with tears. "He told me. He told me our union would bear fruit. That we would be able to continue the Targaryen line."

" _I_ am the Targaryen line," Daenerys hisses violently, face screwing into an ugly visage, snarl breaking free, a finger jutted into her chest with her adamancy. " _Me._ And I will not be set aside so easily."

Aegon swallows thickly, eyes flitting between the three women in unease. His jaw quakes, his breath coming unsteady. "I've heard enough," he says on a shaky breath. He turns to his wife. "Daenerys - "

"Rhaenys told me it was easy to kill a living thing," Sansa says quietly, interrupting the king.

Everyone turns silently toward her.

Sansa keeps her gaze on Daenerys, steady and sure. "She told me 'she' said it was an easy thing."

Daenerys' nostrils flare, her fists curling at her sides.

Rhaenys shakes her head, eyes drifting to the floor. "No..." she says in disbelief, voice cracking.

Jon turns to his sister, reaching on instinct, and then letting his hand fall away. It takes all of him to stay still, to stay steady and immovable. To let Sansa speak her piece. It's an unmanageable mess of remorse and resentment and exhaustion that tangles instead him. And somewhere else, somewhere only he knows, a bit of understanding wedges itself into the light.

Daenerys scoffs again, harsh and jaded. "I don't know what you're talking about," she snaps.

But this time it's Rhaenys who speaks, voice wavering and scared. "You told me I would never be safe until he was dead," she whispers.

Daenerys snaps dangerous eyes her way.

Sansa breathes deeply beside Jon, watching the two women keenly.

Rhaenys straightens, hands curling along her silken skirts – like some measure of comfort, some anchorage. "You made me think there was no other way. That there was no other way," she says shrilly, hands shaking now. "You told me it would just happen all over again, if we were to let him live. You told me I would only ever be safe when Stannis was dead!" she shrieks, crumpling in on herself, tears springing along her eyes again.

"Shut your mouth," Daenerys hisses at Rhaenys, sneer brimming along her lips. "You're only embarrassing yourself."

"You used me," Rhaenys gasps, mouth trembling.

A part of Jon aches at the words, at the realization.

"You _used me_ ," she cries, closing in on Daenerys, tears already trailing their tracks down her cheeks.

But Daenerys stands spine-straight, chin jutted, undaunted. "You were a blubbering _fool_ ," she admonishes, sneer curling along her lips, and Rhaenys stops abruptly. "What would you have done without me all these years, hmm? What could you possibly have accomplished on your own? You think seducing your desperate bastard brother is some grand feat?" she scoffs.

And the acid bites. It bites hard and unforgiving and loud. Jon feels the burn even as he repels from the words, meeting Rhaenys' wide eyes, and then Sansa's.

But Daenerys doesn't stop there. She steps toward Rhaenys, pushing her back merely with her vehemence. "You're a means to an end, dear niece. A means to a rightful, bloody end, but a means, all the same. You've never been more than that, I can assure you," she sneers at her.

And then Jon's rage is vibrant once more, an overwhelming ache coursing through him. A remembrance. A longing. The sister he once loved. The brother he once needed.

He looks at Daenerys and sees nothing but ugliness. Nothing but vile, unkempt selfishness. Not a House, but a Name. Not a home, but a grave.

A place he never wishes to return to.

Rhaenys stumbles back at Daenerys' visceral attack, a hand going to her mouth.

"You said it was easy to kill," Sansa says, as though in reminder. A blunted whisper that edges itself into their awareness. A quiet splinter of recollection.

Daenerys shifts her gaze to Sansa – abrupt and heated.

"I wonder how you came upon such understanding," Sansa says succinctly.

Jon tastes bile at the back of his tongue, an unexplainable queasiness overtaking him then.

"Who exactly did you kill, to know such a thing so intimately?" Sansa asks, voice like a sheet of ice. A deadly calm.

The room settles into another stilted silence.

And then, "Daenerys," Aegon chokes out.

Jon looks at his brother finally, finds him with his face drawn, his gaze on the floor, a sharp furrow to his brow. The sight throws him.

"Daenerys, you didn't..." he manages through an unsteady exhale, eyes drifting up to meet hers finally.

But she has only her glares left, only her spiteful scowls and cold detachment. "Yes, Your Grace?" It is said almost like a challenge.

Aegon stumbles back a step, head shaking, eyes widening in a dreadful realization. "That morning when – that morning Father died. When I woke and you were by his bed and you said – you said he passed in the night..." he mutters disbelievingly, voice trailing off.

Jon sucks in a sharp breath at the thought.

Even Sansa takes in a shuddering inhale beside him, seeming to not have expected quite such a revelation.

Rhaenys moans low and tear-laced, her face pressed into her palms.

Aegon licks his lips, reaching for Daenerys' arm. "Tell me it's not what I'm thinking."

Daenerys lifts her chin, eyes sharp and gleaming. She glances to each of them in turn, gauging, her breath coming quick and shallow now. "Your Grace, this is... this is absurd."

"Tell me you did not kill my father," he urges darkly, fingers curling tightly along her wrist now.

She tries to yank back, but he holds her tight, peers into her face with something desperate and needful.

"Let go of me," she bites out.

"Tell me!" he demands, shaking her.

"I will not be treated thus," she swears, sneering into his face.

"How could you..." He nearly sobs with it.

"Aegon – "

"He was your brother!"

"He was _weak_!" she shouts, chest heaving with it.

It comes like the first gasp of drowning – the fear and realization bright and sudden.

Aegon releases Daenerys as though burned, recoiling from her, his face screwing into a wounded disbelief, his breaths coming halted and heavy. "You..."

"He was no dragon," she says in answer, voice deadly calm again. And then she glances out over the rest of them, eyes lingering over Sansa, before her gaze shifts back to Aegon. She blinks. Seems to slip into something dark and unnamable, the barely perceptible curl of her lip like the promise of a hook to a fish's maw. And then she smiles.

It takes the sun from the room.

"So yes," Daenerys begins, slow and even. "I took a pillow to his face and smothered him in his sleep. What life would be left for him, anyway, wounded as he was? I _saved_ him."

"You _killed_ him," Jon corrects vehemently. "Your own brother, you killed him!"

"Oh gods," Rhaenys moans, a hand going to her stomach as though sick, slumping against the desk to keep herself upright.

Sansa lets out a tremulous exhale at Jon's side, and he glances to her, sees the paleness of her cheeks, the tremble to her limbs, and he reaches for her, helps her to a chair not far from them.

Daenerys laughs. It halts Jon as he leans over Sansa in concern, the sound sending a chill lancing up is spine. He glances back at her, his vision already blurred with sudden tears. He wipes at them furiously, hardly able to fathom more at this very moment, only trying to shove it all away, to focus, to keep himself from dropping to his knees from the weight of it.

It takes all of him not to barrel into Daenerys with every ounce of rage still left in him.

"Why are you all so surprised?" she asks shrilly, a touch of delirium to her voice now, her smile stretching wide and sharp-toothed as she raises her hands to encompass the room. "Is this not what we do? Is this not what it means to be Targaryen? We take what is ours, with fire and blood. We _take_ it," she says breathlessly.

Jon glances at her over his shoulder, his teeth clenching as he tries to rein in his anger.

She only barrels on though, heedless of their growing horror, drunk off her own righteousness. "But Rhaegar didn't understand that. He'd grown soft – same as you all. He'd rather kowtow to every lowly kingdom, offering marriage and alliances – _compromising –_ rather than show them the strength of our rule, to put them in their rightful places – _beneath us_." She barks another laugh, mirthless and cutting. "In fact, the only thing my brother knew how to take was women who were never his in the first place."

Jon's shoulders bunch in his vile anger, a hand curling slowly into a fist at his side, his other stiff along Sansa's shoulder. She reaches for his hand in concern, lays her trembling fingers over his. He takes a breath, glancing down to her in reassurance.

"But I will not be so weak. I am the blood of Old Valyria. And I will take what is mine," Daenerys seethes, her delirium sharpening down into a fine focus, a rush of dark ambition – blossoming out like blood in snow. She glares at Rhaenys, who only stares back at her, tearful and exhausted. "I will not let loose tongues set my plans astray. Nor will I allow failure to go unpunished. Stannis has learned that lesson well enough." Daenerys' gaze shifts to Jon and Sansa, her lip curling in distaste. "And I will not allow for bastard blood to _ever_ supersede my own claim. I am more than my womb. I am no less a queen simply because that bitch can whelp."

Jon nearly breaks from Sansa then, stepping toward Daenerys with a dangerous expression, but his wife's hand at his wrist stops him, tugs him back to her in her need, her body trembling from the exertion, and he breathes deep, tries to keep his vision from flooding red, standing stock still beside her chair.

Daenerys smirks in satisfaction, gaze finally drifting toward Aegon. And then her smile slips, eyes hardening, mouth a thin line. She lifts her chin. "And I will not be set aside by any man. Not even my brother." Her eyes narrow, an eerie, sure calm settling over her. "Not even my king."

Aegon stays staring at her, a quiver of pain flashing over his features. Silence reigns in the room once more, and then Rhaenys slumps back against the desk fully, head shaking as she winds her hands into her hair.

"Guards!" Jon barks.

Four men enter the room at the call, with two of Aegon's Kingsguard.

"Jon," Aegon says weakly, shaking his head, but he's still reeling, a hand bunched in the chest of his tunic, words failing him.

Jon gives him only a single, momentary glance of hesitation, a brother's last, lingering concern, and then his face is steeling into determination, his decision long since made. "Take Her Grace," he commands, the title a sneer on his lips. "For the crimes of kin and king slaying."

Daenerys huffs her indignation. "You would dare!" she shrieks.

"Oh, I would dare a lot worse," Jon promises threateningly. His eyes narrow on hers. "You've no idea what I'd dare to do to you."

"Jon," Aegon manages, clearing his throat. "I won't... I won't allow..."

"She killed King Rhaegar," he cuts in, making sure his voice is loud and even – unequivocally clear for all to hear.

The guards shift hesitantly on their feet at the exclamation, eyes shifting between them.

Jon steps toward Aegon, his hand still linked with Sansa's behind him. "She killed a royal babe," he grinds out, just barely managing to keep his voice from quaking. He registers Sansa's soft sob just behind him, and squeezes her hand in his. "She's admitted to these crimes herself. It is the highest treason one can commit."

Aegon glances to his wife, who glares hotly at him, daring a soul to touch her.

"I am a queen," she grits out, nostrils flaring. "You cannot – "

"You will try her, Your Grace, or I will kill her where she stands," Jon promises vehemently, chest heaving. "Make no mistake."

Aegon's eyes widen at the low threat, and he swallows tightly.

Jon thinks he should be surprised at the surety with which he says it, at the fierceness of his rage. But he can't find it within himself to question it.

Because he would, he knows. He would kill her without hesitation, right here. Right now. For what she's done to them. For what she's done to Sansa.

He glances to his sister, still crumpled in on herself, weeping quietly, a hand over her face.

For the inescapable self-disgust he feels when he remembers the frail pulse of Rhaenys' throat beneath his palm.

Jon tears his gaze away from his sister, settling on his brother instead, dark and unblinking. "Your guards have heard her crimes now. It won't be long before the rest of the Keep knows. Or do you plan to silence them as well? To cover up, once again? Just like our father did. You see how well that served us."

Aegon opens his mouth, closes it, squeezes his eyes shut as he shakes his head. "I..."

"I doubt Viserys would keep his silence concerning her part in this," Jon continues, motioning toward a fuming Daenerys, "Not when he could lose his head for it." His gaze sweeps smoothly toward his aunt. "I suppose it was a convenient failsafe for you, to pin the Lannisters with the crime of his turning, when you eventually killed him, too. Just another loose end, I imagine."

Daenerys steps toward them, scoffing. "You baseborn cur," she spits. And then she swings her fierce gaze on Aegon but he shrinks back, a hand going over his face as a ragged breath leaves him.

"Take her," Jon demands once more, ignoring Daenerys.

She shrieks and rushes toward him, but the guards grab her before she can land a fist. She howls as they drag her back.

Aegon croaks her name, hand falling from his face as he watches her struggle.

"You can't _do this_ to me!" she shouts, shoving at the guards, digging her heels in. "I am the dragon, do you hear me? I am the blood of Old Valyria! The _only_ rightful Targaryen! You can't - you can't – "

"Put the traitor in chains," Jon commands, voice booming over Daenerys' threats.

As she's dragged from the room, Jon feels a tug on his hand, and he glances down to Sansa, finds her leaning over the cushioned arm of the chair, her head in her free hand. He kneels down beside her immediately. "Sansa," he urges, a hand going to her cheek.

She smiles dimly at him. "Will you... will you take me away?" she mutters through her pain.

Jon nods, releasing her hand to slip his arms under her knees and around her back, scooping her up into his arms. She winds her arms around his neck, her head falling to his shoulder with a sigh.

Jon turns to look at his siblings, still rocking from the revelations, faces drawn, mouths tipped open. Rhaenys stares at him with a surrendering sadness he has not seen in years. He gulps back his unease, focuses on the weight of Sansa in his arms. "This isn't finished," he says, eyes flitting toward Aegon.

But his brother – his king – can only shake his head numbly, his eyes to the floor, a hand back over his mouth. And at the sight, Jon realizes how small and lowly he is – has _always_ been.

It's not a welcomed realization, he finds. It smarts keenly, in fact. Like a splinter finally torn free.

(It still aches where it was buried, though, and Jon wonders if it always will.)

The last thing he sees before he turns for the door is Rhaenys's tired weight pushing from the desk, walking to Aegon with hands raised, reaching for him, a tear-laced sob escaping her lips, and then her hands slipping round his shoulders as she tugs her younger brother into her arms.

He does not stay to witness more.

He turns for the door, Sansa secure in his arms.

He does not look back.

* * *

"You said you would not be the king that let House Targaryen splinter to pieces. This is how you do it," Jon says lowly, standing before Aegon's desk, hands cupped together behind him. An even, single-minded calm blankets over him as he stares down at his brother.

After making sure Sansa was settled back at Maestor Gregor's, he'd stopped only to ensure Daenerys was still secured in the cells, before making his way to Aegon's solar.

He will not wait another moment. He will not keep Sansa in this dragon pit another second.

Aegon looks up at him, head lifting from where it rested in his palms, his elbows braced to the desk beneath him.

"Execute Daenerys."

Aegon stands swiftly, swaying with the motion. "You don't understand what you're asking."

"I'm not asking," Jon says evenly.

Aegon narrows his eyes on him. And then he shakes his head, rakes a hand through his fine, silver hair, stalks away from the desk. "It's not that simple."

"It is. It _is_ that simple. She's a kinslayer. And a kingslayer. It's as simple as that."

"She's the queen," Aegon protests, voice rising shakily. "She's... She's the queen, Jon, my wife, and – "

"And a murderer." He stays with his hands secured behind him, shoulders pulled taut. He does not give an inch.

Aegon glances over his shoulder at him, a frown marring his features. "She was threatened, you know that."

"By what? An unborn babe?" he sneers, his ire rising. "Or perhaps a dying man?"

Aegon paces back toward the desk. "Do not ask me to execute her," he bites out, a wet sheen over his eyes, a fist jutted into the desk. His shoulders rack with his heavy breath.

Jon blinks at him, the revelation sweeping through him. His mouth parts, a disbelieving breath leaving him. And then the sneer is back, lips tipping down in a foul frown. "Gods, but you love her, don't you? You _actually_ love her?"

Aegon licks his lips, braces his hands along the desk. He shifts his gaze back and forth along the length of it, as though searching. "She is... she is my wife, and I – "

"She murdered my child!" Jon bellows, his hands coming from round his back, a thunderous step taken toward his brother.

Aegon clenches his jaw, gaze still set to his desk. His shoulders are a thin, trembling line. They cannot carry more.

Jon is shaken by the frailty of him then. He swallows back his ire, reaches for that cold-cut calm, that steady severity, lets it wash over him. "You think she has any affection for you?" he asks derisively. And he would be lying if the sudden stricken look on his brother's face hadn't hurt. But he is well past sympathy. So, he continues. "You think she knows love? _Understands_ it?" He scoffs. "She killed our father, her own brother. What do you think she will do to _you_ , when you've ceased to be anything more than an obstacle to her?"

Aegon slumps back into his chair.

"You cannot pardon her."

Aegon looks up at him, breath heaving from him, brows drawn down.

Jon squares his jaw. "You will take her head, or I swear on all you find holy, brother, I will take it for you," he seethes out, glaring down at him. "And I shall not be clean about it," he promises darkly.

His brother closes his eyes, swallows thickly. His face blanks out, features smoothing into stillness, and then he's blinking his eyes open once more, violet gaze fixed to Jon. He brings his hands to the desk, winds them together slowly and meticulously, steepling his fingers together over the wooden table top. "You've grown bold," he says stiffly – alarmingly quiet.

Jon says nothing, continuing to watch him.

Aegon cocks his head. "Where has all this confidence come from, that you can so easily make such demands of your king?" he asks coldly.

Jon barely manages to keep his smirk at bay. "This very moment, Theon Greyjoy rides to Winterfell with my hand-written missive to Lord Stark detailing your part in Stannis' rebellion against the crown, and how his daughter was nearly killed in the process, only to be poisoned by Stannis' conspirators barely a sennight later."

Aegon's fingers press together tightly, a deep frown marring his features. " _My_ part?" he asks incredulously.

"Your part. Or your wife's," Jon says, moving to lean over the desk, hands planted on either side of it, almost a mirror of his brother. "I suppose my little woven tale wasn't very far off the mark. It matters little though. Whether Ned Stark knows it was you or Daenerys who plotted against his own daughter, who killed the reigning king, who treated with rebels and threatened the peace of the realm – in the end, it doesn't matter which of you takes the blame. Because either way, he will raise his armies and march on the capital. Either way, he will avenge his kin. You and I both know he won't stand by again and watch another lady of the North bleed out in the South," he says meaningfully.

Aegon clenches his jaw, his anger clearly visible in the lines of his face, his flashing violet eyes, but Jon is not deterred. Instead, he relishes in the sight, an unfamiliar sort of freedom playing at the edges of his mind, a new kind of thrill, wholly independent and his. Untethered.

"You would bring war upon us?" Aegon hisses.

"Aye. I would bring war upon _you_. Upon this whole House. Upon every Targaryen that ever threatened me or my wife," he grits out, nails curling along the wood of the desk beneath his splayed hands. "I would bring a war like you've never seen upon _all_ your heads."

Something flashes in Aegon's eyes, and he purses his lips, stares up at Jon. "You can't possibly think I'd let either of you live, then."

Jon keeps his gaze, his glare never relenting. "No," he says evenly. And it's the truth. But here's another truth: "Which is why you have a choice."

His brother cocks his head, lips a thin line, watching him. It's a bare motion to continue.

Jon takes it as the encouragement he'd been looking for. "Execute Daenerys for her crimes against the crown and against the realm. Illuminate her dealings with Stannis, and her manipulation of Viserys. If you're lucky, and if he was smart enough for it, our uncle would have kept evidence of their correspondence. Leverage that for his life. It will solidify the accusation against her – that she tried to eliminate those with claims to the crown, even against you. Let her take the fall for Stannis' attack, for Rhaegar's death, and then let Sansa and I go North, to Winterfell."

Aegon sucks a slow, heavy breath through his lungs, standing stiffly to face Jon. "And why would I ever let you North, hmm? Where you can plan such treason yourself with Lord Stark?"

"Theon Greyjoy has been instructed to expect a raven from me every two days. Should he ever not receive a raven at such time, he is to deliver my missive directly to Lord Stark. But," he says, licking his lips, staring his brother down, "If you should let us North, let me continue my ravens, then my missive will never land in the hands of Ned Stark. And he will never know of the babe she lost, of the poison your wife fed her. He will never have reason to raise his armies against you, to break from the crown."

Aegon's nostrils flare, his hands curling into fists at his sides. "You expect me to trust you? To trust that once I let you North, you will not do exactly that? Once you are safe and out of my reach?"

"I don't expect you to trust anything," Jon says, "Except your own fear."

Aegon's eyes narrow sharply. "What?" he gets out on a sharp breath.

"You can silence us now, kill us, detain us, whatever it is you're thinking of, and you are _guaranteed_ war with the North. And considering our family's fragile hold on the other kingdoms, I'd wager the Riverlands and the Vale won't be far behind the North. Come to think of it, even the Reach has ties with the North now. Do you think they'd bet on your dwindling power? Or that of the House their precious Rose of Highgarden has now tied herself to?"

Aegon's frown harshens into a thin line, his ire clearly building.

But Jon forges on. "Or you can let us go. Take me for my word. I have never broken it. When I tell you we will go North quietly, I mean it. I will live out the rest of my life in Winterfell with my wife and her family. I will not pursue any courtly station or high appointment. I will not stir rebellion or thoughts of independence. I will stay your loyal vassal, and you make keep whatever precarious hold you still have over the kingdoms. Give us your leave, and I will give you peace."

Aegon curls his hands atop the desk, staring him down, a war waging within him.

"But should you threaten my wife or her family, ever – then I will raise such a rebellion as you've never seen before. I will lay our House to waste, once and for all. I will strike you down from that precious Iron Throne with my own hand, do you understand me? I will bring all the continent down on your head and watch as fire and blood takes you," he seethes out, chest heaving. "Test me, and I will demolish you and yours. Test me, and it will be the last thing you do."

Aegon pulls his hands from the desk slowly, watching Jon with keen eyes, straightening as he watches him. And then he looks off to the far wall, takes a deep, soldiering breath, winds his hands behind him in some semblance of grace – what grace he has left, at least. And then he sighs, and it seems to take all of him.

Jon barely allows himself to hope at the sound, staying stock still.

Aegon's frown eases out, a solemn, blank look overtaking his features instead. He flits a resigned gaze to Jon, turned slightly from him. "You wish to go safely North, and have Daenerys executed for her crimes," he says softly, a quiver of regret lining the words.

Jon only nods, never relinquishing his hard gaze.

Aegon's eyes drift down, another heavy sigh leaving him. "Have you any other conditions?" he asks reluctantly.

Jon doesn't let his breath of relief escape him, instead, drawing back from the desk, straightening slowly, evenly. He clears his throat, nods at Aegon. "Let Rhaenys go."

His brother glances up at that.

Jon sighs, shaking his head. "Let her choose her own path," he says.

Aegon says nothing, only shifts his gaze back to the far wall.

Jon wonders if he's remembering that day. That day seven years ago. A half-dead horse. Seventeen arrows. Rhaenys breathing slow and shallowly, slumped in Aegon's arms, Jon's hand gliding over her hair, his other hand fisted in his lap.

It had been a grey afternoon, the hills rolling past them, King's Landing just a hazy shroud over the horizon. Their men, few and trusted, had stood back an appropriate distance, their gazes turned respectfully.

Jon remembers suddenly, as though from a dream, that Aegon had been the first to cry.

The recollection jars him – sudden and unexpected. He hadn't recalled that detail until just now.

Hadn't wanted to, perhaps.

"Rhaenys..." Jon begins, his voice faltering. He clears his throat, tries again.

(A grey afternoon. Her innocence – gone.)

"Rhaenys never had a choice before. Never had the chance to heal," he says, voice clogged with tears. "When Father covered it up, when he silenced those guards to 'protect her honor'," he grits out, teeth clenching, "He'd done her more harm than good."

"She'd have lost any possible marriage prospects, if word got out," Aegon argues softly, almost as though he weren't truly trying. "You know that."

Jon scoffs. "And what marriage prospects has she now, hmm? You?"

Aegon cuts a heated glance Jon's way and it silences him abruptly – the pain in his eyes vibrant and unpracticed. It's not a look Jon's ever seen on him before.

"I would never – " Aegon cuts himself off, swallowing tightly, gaze drifting down to the desk as he shakes his head. "Whether you believe me or not, I just... I don't want to see our sister hurt anymore."

Jon's mouth parts at the quiet admission.

Aegon sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. "But what can be done for her?" he says brokenly, and it lights a pain in Jon he'd thought long forgotten.

"Let her decide," he says.

Aegon's hand falls from his face, his gaze drifting up to meet Jon's.

Jon swallows thickly, nodding. "Whatever it is – whether that's to marry, to leave this place, to... I don't know. Whatever it is – let it be _her_ choice. Give her back the power to chart her own course, to control her own fate. Stop caging her." Jon swallows back the quake in his voice, his eyes tearing at the words. "This is what we can do for her," he urges.

Aegon looks at him, and suddenly, they are young boys again, each looking to the other for acknowledgement, each hanging on the other's words. He's back in that stable, all those years ago, before he ever loosed his father's horse. Aegon is right on his heels, giddy and reckless as they lead the mare out. And Jon...

Jon has his eyes fixed to the sky – wide and dark and littered with stars.

"I've always wanted to ride Father's horse," Aegon says behind him, his hand trailing the mare's flank, eyes wonderous on the beast.

Jon looks back at him, catching the awe in his features, and his hands loosen around the reins instinctively, suddenly struck with a harsh realization.

For he was never meant to ride his father's horse.

And maybe there's a bit of allegory to the realization, but he's too young to know it just then, too young and earnest and free.

He watches Aegon's hand glide up the side of the horse, a sense of possession to the motion, and Jon thinks he understands then, finally, though it takes him many, many years to acknowledge it.

(A bastard craves and craves, after all. He'd been taught thus, and hadn't thought to ever question it.

Even when he found he wasn't the only one craving.)

" _We all have our parts to play,"_ his brother had said, and he had been right.

So, he will be the traitor. He will play the part.

(But the curtain closes here.)

And perhaps this is their tragedy, in two acts. In fire and blood.

(There is no Act Three.)

"Let her go," Jon says again, breathless and winded – exhausted from this struggle, this plight. "Just let her go," he pleads on a hoarse whisper.

Craving has done nothing for any of them. Only reminded them of their loneliness.

(He wants to be a brother, just one last time.)

Aegon watches him with clear eyes, nothing accusatory in them, nothing searching. And maybe he _does_ remember – rolling hills and his sister's breathless, hollow voice –

" _Ride."_

Aegon clenches his jaw, his gaze swinging away from Jon's. A sigh leaves him, heavy and laden with the past. "I understand," he says, voice soft.

Jon can only nod. They stand like this for many moments, with neither of them willing to break the silence. And then Jon dips his head in a respectful farewell, backing away slowly. He makes it nearly to the door when Aegon's rough exhale stops him, his hand halted mid-reach for the handle.

"How did this happen?" his brother asks brokenly, sinking down into his chair, his head in his hand, and Jon nearly turns back fully then, halting just at the half-turn, still braced for the door and yet – inexplicably tethered to the man hunched behind the desk.

A man he used to know, as a boy. A man who used to _be_ a boy.

(And maybe this is what softens Jon, in the end.)

Aegon brings his other hand to his face, burying his sob in his weathered palms. "How did this happen?" he asks again, voice quaking.

_This_ , Jon thinks. Everything.

This chasm between them, this resentment inside them, this choice before them.

Everything.

_How did this happen?_

But Jon knows it very well. Has known it from the start, even if they didn't.

He turns fully to his brother, hand falling back to his side. It's alright that he never meets his eyes, his face still buried in his hands. It's alright because, in the end -

"We did this to ourselves," Jon says, a measure of surety to the words – a finality.

Aegon stiffens, his sob choked off on a sharp inhale.

Jon doesn't wait for a reply. He doesn't wait for his brother to tear his face from his hands, to look at him desperately – suddenly boyish and lost. He doesn't wait for anything.

He simply leaves.

That sudden-ripped splinter, that searing hole left in its wake – Jon finds it doesn't sting so much anymore. Because in the end, it is a clean ache.

It is the harrowing ache of freedom – when all the blood has let at last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With the majority of the political fallout now being wrapped up, you can rest assured that the coming final chapter will be about healing and catharsis for our duo. The long-awaited breath of spring, in the wake of such a barren winter.


End file.
